OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Mira Murati has resigned from the privately held artificial intelligence (A.I.) start-up company.
Murati is the latest in a series of senior executives to leave OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed (MSFT) company known for it ChatGPT A.I. assistant or chatbot.
In a post on X, Murati said “I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.”
Murati’s departure comes on the heels of a reported $6.5 billion U.S. financing round that values OpenAI at $150 billion U.S.
It also comes as OpenAI plans to restructure itself into a for-profit corporation and provide Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sam Altman with an equity stake in the company.
In August of this year, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman left the company for rival Anthropic, and another co-founder, Greg Brockman, recently took a sabbatical from OpenAI.
A third co-founder of OpenAI, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, left the company in May of this year to start his own A.I. venture.
Some of the departing executives have expressed concerns about OpenAI’s change from its previous non-profit business model.
Murati had worked at OpenAI for more than six years. She served as CTO since May 2022. In her role, Murati frequently appeared alongside Sam Altman as the public face of OpenAI.
The stock of OpenAI is privately held and does not trade on a public exchange.
