OpenAI’s Restructuring Plans

By Giulio Piovaccari and Elvira Pollina

TURIN, Italy (Reuters) – Sam Altman denied on Thursday any link between the departure of three senior OpenAI executives and a planned restructuring of the company, which the board has been considering for several months.

The world-leading AI firm’s longtime Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati abruptly announced her departure on Wednesday. Within hours, two senior research executives, Barret Zoph and Bob McGrew, also revealed they were leaving the company.

On the same day, Reuters reported that OpenAI was working on a plan to restructure its core business into a for-profit benefit corporation that would no longer be controlled by its non-profit board, aiming to make the company more attractive to investors.

Speaking at the Italian Tech Week conference in Turin, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that “some stuff” reported about the executives’ departures was inaccurate and that the personnel changes were unrelated to the restructuring.

“That’s totally not true,” he told event organizer John Elkann, the chairman of car companies Ferrari and Stellantis. “A lot of the stuff I saw was also just totally wrong, but we have been thinking about that (restructuring), our board has, for almost a year, independently, as we think about what it takes to get to our next stage.”

Altman praised the departing executives and expressed excitement about simplifying the company’s structure and working more closely with technical staff. “I have not been as involved in the tech recently as other things, because there’s been so much going on; I’m excited to do that,” he stated.

“This will be, hopefully, a great transition for everyone involved, and OpenAI will be stronger for it, as we are for all our transitions.”

Details of the proposed restructure highlight significant changes behind the scenes at one of the world’s top AI companies. Sources indicated that the plans were still being negotiated between lawyers and shareholders at the time of writing, with an uncertain timeline for completion.