OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said she is leaving the company — the latest executive defection to rock the preeminent AI startup. And on Thursday, two more executives quit.
“After much reflection, I have made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI,” Murati wrote in a memo to the company late Wednesday, which she shared on social media site X. “There’s never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right.”
“I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration. For now, my primary focus is doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, maintaining the momentum we’ve built,” said Murati, who praised the ChatGPT maker’s achievements and Altman’s leadership. “I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to build and work alongside this remarkable team.”
Late Thursday, two more OpenAI leaders — Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, vice president of research — said they were exiting.
Murati, arguably the second-most recognizable face of the company after Chief Executive Sam Altman, served six and a half years and was briefly interim CEO last year while the board grappled with the fate of Altman. She’s also the latest executive to bolt the company, joining fellow defectors Ilya Sutskever, who co-founded OpenAI, and former safety leader Jan Leike, both of whom departed in May. Last month, co-founder John Schulman said he was leaving to join rival Anthropic.
“Mira Murati’s sudden resignation is another indicator that OpenAI is restructuring its core business and moving from a non-profit to a for-profit organization,” Josh Benaron, founder and CEO of programmable data chain company Irys, said in an email. “It also calls into question who will have control of OpenAI. Everyone from governments to investors want to have control over one of the largest AI companies in the world, and Murati’s departure shows that OpenAI is ready to start the competition of who comes into power. With whoever gets free reign of the company, it will decide whether OpenAI works for commercial interest or the benefit of humanity.”
Like several of her predecessors who left, Murati has repeatedly cautioned about advances in AI and warned technology can become “extremely addictive” without proper design.
OpenAI has both trailblazed in technology — it recently announced models that bring human reasoning to chatbots for math and science — while at the same time raising concerns among lawmakers, regulators and tech execs, prompting Altman to repeatedly reassure the company is taking steps for responsible AI use. Still, officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are sharpening their regulatory sights on OpenAI, its major backer Microsoft Corp., and NVIDIA Corp.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Monday to sign or veto an ambitious AI safety bill that could serve as a template for other states and, perhaps, the nation.
Murati joined OpenAI in 2018 as vice president of AI and partnerships. She was named senior vice president of research, product and partnerships in 2020, and then promoted to CTO in 2022.
Before that, she worked at Tesla Inc. and computer peripheral startup Leap Motion.
“Her departure will undoubtedly have implications for the AI industry given that she’s been a prominent figure and advocate for responsible AI development,” Ganesh Swami, co-founder and CEO of data company Covalent, said in an email. “Right now it’s all speculative, but it’s clear OpenAI is at a crossroads and the direction the company chooses to take may alter the course of AI as we know it.”
