New York: Three top executives at Microsoft-backed OpenAI have resigned, marking another significant shift in leadership for the company amidst ongoing changes. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, VP of Research Barret Zoph, and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew announced their departures via X on Wednesday afternoon.
The San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup is currently negotiating a new $6.5 billion financing round that values the company at $150 billion. This valuation is contingent upon restructuring the company into a for-profit benefit corporation and granting CEO Sam Altman an equity stake, as reported by Reuters. The existing structure features a non-profit board overseeing the for-profit entity, a rare arrangement that led to the board’s ousting of Altman in November 2023 due to communication breakdowns and a loss of trust. He was reinstated after five days.
While the funding round has yet to close, the ongoing negotiations could be influenced by the executives’ exits. Some fundraising documents include a “material adverse change” clause, which permits investors to withdraw from a deal if the company faces developments that could significantly harm its prospects.
Murati remains at OpenAI as she negotiates her exit, according to a source close to her. Having been with the company for six and a half years, she briefly served as CEO in November when the board temporarily removed Altman. Murati joined OpenAI as “VP of Applied AI and Partnerships” in December 2020 and was promoted to CTO in May 2022. Before her tenure at OpenAI, she worked at the virtual and augmented reality startup Leap Motion and at Tesla.
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As CTO, Murati often appeared alongside Altman, becoming a prominent face of the company. She led the presentation for the launch of OpenAI’s GPT-4o model in May, which introduced realistic voice conversation capabilities. In her resignation post on X, she stated, “I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.”
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Murati, Zoph, and McGrew’s departures add to a series of executive exits at OpenAI. In August, co-founder John Schulman announced on X that he had joined rival AI firm Anthropic, while fellow co-founder Greg Brockman also shared plans for a sabbatical until the end of the year. Additionally, chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left OpenAI in May.
In response to the departures, Altman remarked on X that Murati did not inform him ahead of her decision, explaining that she wanted to leave while the company was thriving, stating, “there is never a good time.” He also used the opportunity to announce several internal promotions: Matt Knight to Chief Information Security Officer, Josh Achiam to Head of Mission Alignment, and Mark Chen to Senior Vice President of Research.
