OpenAI's CTO, Mira Murati, Has Announced Her Departure In Advance Of A Major Developer Event
Murati is the latest high-profile executive to leave OpenAI, joining a growing list of recent departures, including co-founder John Schulman and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
Mira Murati, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer, has announced her departure from the company after more than six years. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, Murati said she had made the “difficult decision” to leave OpenAI to pursue new opportunities. During her time at the AI research firm, Murati played a central role in the development of key products, including the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, the text-to-image generator DALL-E, and the code-writing system Codex, which powers GitHub’s Copilot.
I replied with this. Mira, thank you for everything.
— Sam Altman (@sama) September 25, 2024
It’s hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to us all personally.
I feel tremendous gratitude towards her for what she has helped us build and accomplish, but I most of all feel personal…
CEO Sam Altman thanked her for her contributions in a post, and OpenAI declined to comment further. Murati’s departure comes just before OpenAI’s annual developer conference, DevDay. During her tenure, she earned a reputation for making bold statements about AI's future and its potential impact on industries.
Since joining OpenAI in 2018 as Vice President of Applied AI and Partnerships, Murati has been instrumental in pushing the company’s most ambitious projects forward. She was promoted to CTO in 2022 and led OpenAI’s development of its flagship models.
Murati’s exit comes at a critical time for OpenAI, just one week before its annual DevDay developer conference. The company, which has been at the forefront of AI advancements, is also reportedly in talks to raise a funding round that could value it at more than $150 billion. Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, and Thrive Capital are among those rumored to be interested in investing.
Murati has not yet disclosed her next steps but hinted at new projects on the horizon, stating that the time was right for her to step away and pursue personal exploration.
