OpenAI’s technology chief Mira Murati and other research executives to leave

(Reuters) -Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati will leave the artificial intelligence startup, the executive said in a post on X, the latest in a string of executive departures this year.

“I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration,” Murati wrote in the X post.

Hours after Murati quit, two additional technical leaders, Barret Zoph and Bob McGrew, also quit, according to an X post from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Zoph held the title VP Research and McGrew held the title of chief research officer, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

The departure comes on the heels of a reported $6.5 billion financing round valuing the company at $150 billion, contingent on the company upending its corporate structure. The company plans to restructure to a for-profit benefit corporation, and will give Altman an equity stake, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The funding round has not closed yet and the company is in the process of finalizing it.

It was unclear whether Murati’s departure could affect the ongoing fundraise. Some fundraising documents contain a “material adverse change” clause which allows investors to withdraw from a deal if the company encounters anything that could have a significant negative impact.

Murati has been part of the ChatGPT maker for 6-1/2 years, and briefly served as CEO in November when the board temporarily ousted then reinstated co-founder Altman in a shock move.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Murati joined OpenAI as the “VP of Applied AI and Partnerships” in December 2020 and was promoted to CTO in May 2022. Prior to OpenAI, she worked at virtual and augmented reality startup Leap Motion and at Tesla (NASDAQ:).

As CTO, Murati frequently appeared alongside Altman as the public face of the ChatGPT maker. When OpenAI launched its GPT-4o model in May, capable of having realistic voice conversation, Murati led the presentation.

Murati is the latest in a string of OpenAI executive departures. In August, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman said on X that he had joined rival AI company Anthropic, and another co-founder, Greg Brockman, also said on X he was taking a sabbatical through the end of the year. A third co-founder, chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, left OpenAI in May.

On X, Altman also announced a slew of 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.