OpenAI Technology Chief Mira Murati and Two Other Research Executives to Depart, According to Reuters

By Anna Tong

Three key technical executives at OpenAI, the company backed by Microsoft, announced their resignations on Wednesday. This marks yet another departure in a series of executive changes this year for the AI firm behind ChatGPT.

The executives who stepped down are Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, Vice President of Research Barret Zoph, and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew. They shared their decision through social media on Wednesday afternoon.

Based in San Francisco, OpenAI is currently in talks for a new financing round totaling $6.5 billion, which would value the company at $150 billion, pending structural changes to its corporate framework. The company is looking to transition to a for-profit benefit corporation and will provide CEO Sam Altman with an equity stake, according to reports. At present, a non-profit board oversees the for-profit entity—an unusual arrangement that led to tensions, culminating in Altman’s brief ousting in November 2023, before he was reinstated after five days.

As of now, the funding round remains unclosed, with the company working to finalize the deal. It remains uncertain how the recent executive departures might impact this fundraising effort. Some documents related to fundraising contain a "material adverse change" clause, which allows investors to withdraw if the company faces events that could potentially harm its value.

According to sources, Murati is still at OpenAI as she navigates her exit from the organization. She has been with the company for six and a half years, briefly stepping in as CEO in November during Altman’s removal. Murati joined OpenAI as the Vice President of Applied AI and Partnerships in December 2020 and ascended to the role of CTO in May 2022, having previously worked at Leap Motion and Tesla.

As CTO, Murati was frequently the public face of the organization alongside Altman. She played a leading role in the launch of the GPT-4o model in May, which is capable of realistic voice conversations. In a post on social media, Murati expressed her desire to take time for personal exploration as a reason for her departure.

Murati, Zoph, and McGrew are not the only executives to leave OpenAI recently. In August, co-founder John Schulman announced his move to rival AI firm Anthropic, while another co-founder, Greg Brockman, stated he would be taking a sabbatical until the year’s end. Additionally, chief scientist Ilya Sutskever departed in May.

In response to the departures, Altman noted on social media that Murati had not communicated her decision to him in advance. She expressed a desire to leave while the company was experiencing success, conveying that “there is never a good time” for such a decision. In the same update, Altman shared several internal promotions: Matt Knight as Chief Information Security Officer, Josh Achiam leading mission alignment, and Mark Chen as Senior Vice President of Research.