OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announces she is leaving—the AI startup’s latest high-level departure

OpenAI CTO Mira Murati said Wednesday that she is leaving the high-profile artificial intelligence (AI) company after six and a half years.

“There’s never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right,” Murati wrote in a statement she shared on X.

Murati has been a key player at OpenAI, which captured the attention of the world in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT. She served as (very) temporary chief executive of the company after its board of directors temporarily ousted CEO Sam Altman last year.

Murati wrote that she is leaving “because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.”

She’s the latest of a number of high-profile executives to leave the startup, including cofounder John Schulman.

Prior to joining OpenAI, Murati worked on Tesla’s Model X and was VP of product and engineering at Leap Motion, which was working on an augmented reality system to replace keyboards and mice with hand gestures.

OpenAI is currently fundraising a new round that could value the company at more than $150 billion, according to reports. Investors reportedly include Thrive Capital, Tiger Global, Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia.

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