OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, and VP Research (Post-Training) Barret Zoph will be leaving the ChatGPT-maker, confirmed CEO Sam Altman on X as he shared a longer note about the string of departures and the company’s future.

Altman appreciated the departing employees for their hard work, but focused especially on Murati’s contributions and her reasons for leaving.

“Leadership changes are a natural part of companies, especially companies that grow so quickly and are so demanding. I obviously won’t pretend it’s natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company, and I think the reasons Mira explained to me (there is never a good time, anything not abrupt would have leaked, and she wanted to do this while OpenAI was in an upswing) make sense,” said Altman as part of a longer note on X.

Murati called her 6.5 years at OpenAI an “extraordinary privilege” and said that she was looking forward to explorations of her own.

Altman noted that the three employees made their decisions “independently of each other and amicably.”

He went on to outline how the company’s leadership would change, and said he would be shifting to spending most of his time on the technical and product parts of the company.

Meanwhile, McGrew and Zoph also praised the OpenAI team as they announced their departures.

Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew and VP Research Barret Zoph also announced their departure from OpenAI | Photo Credit: Sourced from X

OpenAI has seen a string of top-level executives leaving the Microsoft-backed company. Co-founder Greg Brockman also announced in early August that he was taking a sabbatical through the year.

OpenAI was previously criticised over its allegedly restrictive exit clauses that discouraged ex-employees from criticising the company.

The news of the departures came as Reuters cited anonymous sources to report that OpenAI could transition to become a for-profit benefit corporation where Altman may get equity.

However, an OpenAI spokesperson said that the non-profit was “core” to its mission and will continue to exist, per Reuters.