Three senior technical leaders at OpenAI, a company backed by Microsoft, resigned on Wednesday, marking the latest in a series of executive exits this year during a pivotal moment for the ChatGPT creator. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, VP of Research Barret Zoph, and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew announced their departures via X in the afternoon.
The San Francisco-based AI firm is currently in negotiations for a new $6.5 billion funding round, which could value the company at $150 billion, provided it undergoes a corporate restructuring. The company is planning to transition into a for-profit benefit corporation, a move that would grant CEO Sam Altman an equity stake, according to a Reuters report. Currently, OpenAI is governed by a nonprofit board that controls the for-profit arm, a unique structure that led to Altman’s temporary ouster in November 2023 due to communication breakdowns and loss of trust. He was reinstated after five days.
The funding round has yet to close as the company finalises negotiations. It remains unclear whether the executive departures will impact the fundraising process. Some documents include “material adverse change” clauses, which allow investors to back out if a significant negative event occurs within the company.
Murati is still with OpenAI while negotiating her exit, a source close to her revealed. She has been with the company for over six years and briefly served as CEO during Altman’s November absence. According to her LinkedIn profile, Murati joined OpenAI as VP of Applied AI and Partnerships in December 2020 before being promoted to CTO in May 2022. Before OpenAI, she worked at Leap Motion and Tesla. As CTO, Murati often represented OpenAI alongside Altman, and she led the launch of the GPT-4o model in May, which introduced the ability to have realistic voice conversations.
In a post on X, Murati explained her departure: “I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.” Her exit, along with those of Zoph and McGrew, adds to a growing list of departures at OpenAI. In August, co-founder John Schulman announced on X that he had joined Anthropic, a rival AI firm, while another co-founder, Greg Brockman, shared that he was taking a sabbatical. Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, also a co-founder, left in May.
Altman responded on X, stating that Murati had not informed him ahead of her departure but wanted to leave when the company was performing well. In the same post, Altman announced a series of internal promotions, including Matt Knight as Chief Information Security Officer, Josh Achiam as Head of Mission Alignment, and Mark Chen as Senior Vice President of Research.
With inputs from Reuters
