OpenAI co-founder John Schulman announced he was leaving the ChatGPT-maker in order to join the Google and Amazon-backed Anthropic, where he plans to focus on AI alignment.

“I’ve made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work. I’ve decided to pursue this goal at Anthropic, where I believe I can gain new perspectives and do research alongside people deeply engaged with the topics I’m most interested in,” he posted.

Schulman strongly denied that he was leaving because of OpenAI’s lack of support for alignment research.

The OpenAI co-founder had been with the company for around nine years.

He reiterated that he felt OpenAI was in capable hands and that its teams would thrive without him, striking a starkly different note from former OpenAI executive Jan Leike, who criticised the company’s safety procedures as he departed.

Leike also joined Anthropic, and welcomed Schulman to the company.

“Very excited to be working together again!” Leike posted on X.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised Schulman, wished him the best of luck, and shared a memory of their first meeting.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for OpenAI! You are a brilliant researcher, a deep thinker about product and society, and mostly, you are a great friend to all of us. We will miss you tremendously and make you proud of this place,” posted Altman on X.

Billionaire Elon Musk, a former investor in OpenAI, again sued the AI company and co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman this week.

He claimed that the ChatGPT-maker had greatly deviated from its founding aims of helping people.