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Tag: greg brockman

  • OpenAI President Defends Trump Donations, Refuses to Comment on ICE

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    OpenAI cofounder and president Greg Brockman gave millions of dollars to support President Donald Trump in 2025, despite the fact that Trump can’t run for president again. Why? Apparently, Brockman really wants to encourage government support for AI as the technology suffers from bad press. Just don’t ask Brockman about ICE brutalizing U.S. cities.

    Wired published a new interview with Brockman on Thursday that notes the OpenAI president sees himself as an apolitical tech founder who just wants to help humanity with the proliferation of AI.

    “We are embarking on a journey to develop this technology that’s going to be the most impactful thing humanity has ever created. Getting that right and making that benefit everyone, that’s the most important thing,” Brockman told Wired.

    Last year, Brockman and his wife gave $25 million to MAGA Inc, a pro-Trump super PAC, and $25 million to Leading the Future, a supposedly nonpartisan super PAC that promotes AI. Other contributors to Leading the Future include the pro-MAGA billionaire Marc Andreessen and far-right Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.

    The 38-year-old OpenAI president told Wired that he’s doing more political spending because public opinion is turning against AI, something that has shown up in recent polling of Americans. According to a Pew poll from September 2025, 53% of Americans say AI will worsen people’s ability to think creatively, while 16% say it will improve creativity. Just 10% of Americans say they’re more excited than concerned about what AI will do to society, while 57% of Americans rate the societal risks of AI as high.

    But arguably the most interesting part of Brockman’s interview with Wired came right at the end. It appears his discussion with Wired happened before the killing of two people in Minnesota at the hands of federal agents. Renee Good was killed on January 7, and Alex Pretti was killed on January 24, gunned down by masked goons sent to Minneapolis by President Trump to terrorize immigrant communities.

    Wired reached out to Brockman about the killings, but he apparently declined to comment directly, instead saying, “AI is a uniting technology, and can be so much bigger than what divides us today.” That, of course, is PR bullshit. But it’s to be expected in an environment where Big Tech continues to cozy up to an authoritarian regime hellbent on crushing dissent.

    Screenshots from a video taken by Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed Renee Good on Jan. 7, 2026. Images: Alpha News

    It seems like every big-name tech executive is doing what they can to help Trump, even as the president’s popularity plummets. Guys like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook are all lining up to kiss the ring, as long as they can extract government contracts or grease the wheels on mergers and acquisitions.

    Greg Brockman isn’t doing anything particularly unique by giving Trump and his cronies millions. But it’s important to keep that mental list of who is helping in the rise of fascism in 2026. Because there will be a day after the Trump era. The 79-year-old is in poor health and has lost any semblance of the popular support he had. Just 36% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing, according to a new poll from the Associated Press on Thursday.

    No one can tell you exactly when Trump’s time as president will be up. But nobody should forget what Brockman and the like did during this time. If those who have funded Trump’s reign of terror are allowed to just wake up in a post-Trump world and pretend like it never happened, we’ll have failed as a society.

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    Matt Novak

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  • OpenAI’s Leadership Exodus: 9 Key Execs Who Left the A.I. Giant This Year

    OpenAI’s Leadership Exodus: 9 Key Execs Who Left the A.I. Giant This Year

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    Mira Murati, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman and Andrej Karpathy (clockwise, starting at top left). Photos by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images, JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images and Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

    Since ChatGPT took the world by storm in late 2022, OpenAI’s revenue and market value have skyrocketed. But internally, the company hasn’t necessarily had the smoothest ride. The A.I. giant, valued at $150 billion, lost a slew of top executives this year. On Wednesday (Sept. 25) alone, a trio of leaders, including chief technology officer Mira Murati, chief research officer Bob McGrew, and VP of research Barret Zoph, all announced their departures. They join a larger group of former OpenAI employees who have left for rival A.I. developers and startups. As of now, CEO Sam Altman is one of only two active remaining members of the company’s original 11-person founding team.

    OpenAI hasn’t just lost employees—it has also rehired some familiar faces. In May, OpenAI welcomed back Kyle Kosic, who worked at the company between 2021 and 2023 on its technical staff. Kosic left last year to join Elon Musk’s xAI. Several other outgoing OpenAI employees have taken similar routes and gone on to work for competing A.I. companies, showing just how competitive the industry is at the moment.

    Here’s a look at some of the top leaders OpenAI has lost in 2024 thus far:

    Andrej Karpathy, research scientist

    Andrej Karpathy has left OpenAI not once but twice. One of OpenAI’s 11 founders, Karpathy helped build the company’s team on computer vision, generative modeling and reinforcement learning. He first departed in 2017 to lead Tesla’s Autopilot effort. Returning to OpenAI in 2023, Karpathy left once again in February this year to focus on “personal projects.” He subsequently established Eureka Labs, an A.I. education startup.

    Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist and co-head of the super alignment team

    A renowned machine learning researcher, Ilya Sutskever helped co-found OpenAI nearly a decade ago and served as the company’s chief scientist. He was also notably a member of the four-person board that temporarily ousted Altman last year before reinstating him. Sutskever, who was subsequently removed from the board, later said he regretted his involvement in the brief ouster. In May, he announced his departure from OpenAI and said he was leaving for a venture that is “very personally meaningful.”

    This project was revealed to be Safe Superintelligence, a startup focused on developing a safe form of artificial general intelligence (AGI), a type of A.I. that can think and learn on par with humans. Earlier this month, the company was valued at $5 billion after raising $1 billion from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.

    Jan Leike, co-head of the super alignment team

    Just days after Sutskever left, OpenAI executive Jan Leike announced his resignation as well. Sutskever and Leike co-ran the company’s safety team, which has since been disbanded. Leike said he decided to leave in part due to disagreements with OpenAI leadership “about the company’s core priorities,” citing a lack of focus on safety processes around developing AGI. Leike has since taken up a new role as head of alignment science at Anthropic, an OpenAI rival founded by former OpenAI employees Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei.

    John Schulman, head of alignment science

    John Schulman, another OpenAI co-founder, made significant contributions to the creation of ChatGPT. After Leike’s departure, Schulman became head of OpenAI’s alignment science efforts and was appointed to its new safety committee in May. That’s why Schulman’s decision in August to step away from the company came as a surprise—especially when he revealed that he would be joining Anthropic. “This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on A.I. alignment and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work,” said Schulman on X, where he also clarified that his decision to step away from OpenAI wasn’t connected to a lack of support for alignment research.

    Peter Deng, vice president of consumer product

    Peter Deng, a top OpenAI product executive, also decided to step away from the company earlier this year. Having first joined OpenAI last year, he ended his tenure as vice president of product in July, according to his LinkedIn. Deng, who also previously held product leader positions at companies like Uber (UBER) and Meta (META), has not publicly revealed his next steps.

    Greg Brockman, president

    Greg Brockman, often seen as Altman’s right-hand man, hasn’t technically left the company but is instead taking a sabbatical through the end of 2024. In August, he announced his time off and described it as the “first time to relax since co-founding OpenAI nine years ago.” Brockman started off as OpenAI’s chief technology officer before becoming the company’s president in 2022. He indicated that he plans to return to OpenAI, noting that “the mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build.”

    Mira Murati, chief technology officer

    Mira Murati, one of OpenAI’s most public-facing figures, resigned earlier this week after more than six years with the company. “I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration,” said Murati, who notably served as interim CEO during Altman’s brief ousting last year, on X. Adding that she will “still be rooting” for OpenAI, Murati said her primary focus currently is “doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, maintaining the momentum we’ve built.” Altman praised her leadership in a statement on X, describing Murati as instrumental to OpenAI’s “development from an unknown research lab to an important company.”

    Bob McGrew, chief research officer

    Shortly after Murati’s resignation, Bob McGrew, OpenAI’s chief research officer, also announced plans to leave the company. He simply said on X, “It is time for me to take a break.” Having previously worked at PayPal (PYPL) and Palantir, McGrew started off as a member of OpenAI’s technical staff and has been serving as OpenAI’s chief research officer since August.

    Barret Zoph, vice president of research

    Barret Zoph is the third executive who announced his resignation this week. Like his two colleagues, Zoph said it’s a “personal decision based on how I want to evolve the next phase of my career.” Zoph, a former research scientist at Google (GOOGL), joined OpenAI in 2022 and played a large role in overseeing OpenAI’s post-training team.

    Murati, McGrew and Zoph made their decisions independently of each other, according to Altman, but decided to depart simultaneously “so that we can work together for a smooth handover to the next generation of leadership.” The CEO conceded that, while the abruptness of the leadership changes isn’t the most natural, “we are not a normal company.”

    OpenAI’s Leadership Exodus: 9 Key Execs Who Left the A.I. Giant This Year

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    Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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  • ChatGPT Cofounders, Leaders Leaving OpenAI, 3 Left of 11 | Entrepreneur

    ChatGPT Cofounders, Leaders Leaving OpenAI, 3 Left of 11 | Entrepreneur

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    OpenAI’s founding team started with 11 people, including Elon Musk. Now Musk is suing the company for allegedly going against its founding mission and several of OpenAI’s cofounders are stepping away from their roles.

    Late Monday, OpenAI cofounder John Schulman announced on X that he would be leaving to join rival AI firm Anthropic. He specified that his decision was personal, and not based on lack of support for AI safety research.

    “My decision is a personal one,” he wrote, adding later that he will “still be rooting” for the OpenAI team, “even while working elsewhere.”

    Related: AI Is Standing Between You and Your Next Job — Here’s How to Get Your Application Into Human Hands.

    Schulman’s departure overlaps with another OpenAI cofounder stepping back from the company. On Monday, OpenAI president Greg Brockman stated that he would be taking an extended sabbatical for the rest of the year.

    Brockman, CEO Sam Altman, and Wojciech Zaremba, a research and language team leader, are the only members of OpenAI’s 2015 founding team who remain at the company.

    The rest, including former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, have left, with Sutskever founding his own Safe Superintelligence venture in June.

    Related: OpenAI Resignations: How Do We Prevent AI From Going Rogue?

    Peter Deng, OpenAI’s vice president of consumer product, also left OpenAI on Monday per The Information, though he wasn’t on the founding team.

    OpenAI has faced controversy recently, with Jan Leike, its former safety leader who departed for Anthropic in May, accusing the company of prioritizing “shiny products” over safety. In the same month, Scarlett Johansson hired legal counsel after finding that ChatGPT’s voice sounded “eerily similar” to hers.

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Ilya Sutskever Quits OpenAI

    Ilya Sutskever Quits OpenAI

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    Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder and chief scientist, announced he was leaving the company on Tuesday. OpenAI confirmed the departure in a press release. Sutskever’s official exit comes nearly six months after he helped lead an effort with other board members to fire CEO Sam Altman, the move backfired days later.

    I Gave Sam Altman a Copy of My Eyeballs | Future Tech

    “After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI,” said Sutskever via a tweet on Tuesday afternoon. “I am excited for what comes next — a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time.”

    “Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways,” said Altman in a tweet shortly after. “This is very sad to me; Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend.”

    Altman went on to say that Jakub Pachocki, a senior researcher on Sutskever’s team, would be replacing him as OpenAI’s Chief Scientist. Sutskever notes an undisclosed project that is very “meaningful” to him moving forward. It’s unclear at this time what that project is.

    Jan Leike, another OpenAI executive who worked with Sutskever on safeguarding future AI, also resigned on Tuesday, according to The Information. Leike and Sutskever led OpenAI’s superalignment team, charged with the grandiose task of making sure the company’s super-powerful AI does not turn against humans.

    For the last six months, Sutskever’s status has been unclear at OpenAI. When Altman returned to the company in late Nov. of 2023, he said this on Sutskever: “we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI.” Sutskever was the only member of OpenAI left in limbo at the time—neither fired nor rehired.

    Since then, Altman has refused to answer questions about Sutskever’s status at the company in multiple interviews. We barely heard from Sutskever himself during this time period. This is Sutskever’s first tweet in over five months, and OpenAI’s chief scientist was missing from major announcements such as Sora and this week’s GPT-4 Omni.

    Earlier this year, founding OpenAI member Andrej Karpathy left the company. In that case as well, Karpathy did not provide a particular reason for his exit, and later described that he would work on personal projects.

    Sutskever posted a photo with OpenAI leaders Altman, Mira Murati, Greg Brockman, and Jakub Pachocki shortly after announcing his exit. Severa; featured in the photo posted kind messages about Sutskever’s tenure at OpenAI, praising the well-renowned scientist for his contributions to the artificial intelligence world.

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    Maxwell Zeff

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  • Sam Altman to Join Microsoft Following OpenAI Ouster

    Sam Altman to Join Microsoft Following OpenAI Ouster

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    Updated Nov. 20, 2023 6:34 am ET

    SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft said it is hiring Sam Altman to helm a new advanced artificial-intelligence research team, after his bid to return to OpenAI fell apart Sunday with the board that fired him declining to agree to the proposed terms of his reinstatement.

    Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella posted on X (formerly Twitter) late Sunday that Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder who resigned Friday in protest over Altman’s ouster, will lead its team alongside unspecified colleagues. Nadella said Microsoft was committed to its partnership with OpenAI and that it would move quickly to provide Altman and Brockman with “the resources needed for their success.” 

    Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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  • Ousted OpenAI CEO Altman planning new AI venture

    Ousted OpenAI CEO Altman planning new AI venture

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    By Krystal Hu, Anna Tong and Jeffrey Dastin

    (Reuters) -Sam Altman, the recently ousted CEO of OpenAI, has been working on a new artificial intelligence venture he is planning to launch, sources briefed on the plan said on Saturday.

    Former OpenAI president Greg Brockman, who said he quit OpenAI over Altman’s firing on Friday, is expected to join the effort, according to the Information, which reported the venture earlier citing a person familiar with the matter.

    Altman could not be reached for comment and Brockman did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

    Some researchers at OpenAI, including Szymon Sidor, have quit the company over the CEO change but it was unclear if Sidor and others will join Altman’s new venture.

    Altman and Apple’s former design chief Jony Ive have been discussing building a new artificial intelligence (AI) hardware device, the Information reported in September. It also reported at the time that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has also been involved in the conversation.

    The board of OpenAI, the company behind hit product ChatGPT, on Friday pushed out its high-profile CEO Altman. Co-founder Brockman quit shortly after Altman was fired.

    Altman’s ouster was over “breakdown of communications,” not “malfeasance”, Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap wrote in an internal company memo earlier Saturday that was viewed by Reuters.

    (Reporting by Krystal Hu in New York, Anna Tong and Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco, Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Kenneth Li)

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  • Greg Brockman quits OpenAI after abrupt firing of Sam Altman | TechCrunch

    Greg Brockman quits OpenAI after abrupt firing of Sam Altman | TechCrunch

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    OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman has quit the firm, he said Friday, hours after the Microsoft-backed giant abruptly fired its chief executive Sam Altman and assured that Brockman would remain at the startup. Brockman’s sudden departure adds to the day’s uncertainties at OpenAI, following closely on the heels of its maiden developer conference led by Altman.

    Brockman said in a series of tweets that Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI, informed Altman about a Friday noon call on Thursday evening. On the call, Sutskever and the rest of the OpenAI board members told Altman that he had been fired.

    “As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior,” Brockman wrote. Mira Murati, the CTO of OpenAI, has been appointed as interim CEO of OpenAI, the startup said today.

    OpenAI earlier said that Brockman was stepping down as chairman of the board, but will remain at the firm. Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman, is a close confidant of the former OpenAI chief executive. He said Friday that the board wanted him to continue, but he had chosen to resign and was saddened by the board’s direction.

    OpenAI and Microsoft, which is not on the board of the startup but owns roughly half of the company, remain tightlipped about what led to the ouster of Altman from the startup, whose large language model kickstarted / supercharged the AI race.

    The pair’s exit has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley. Altman has been the public face of the startup, which not only is widely estimated to be leading the current AI race but has in less than a year also assumed the position of kingmaker for countless other startups that are building atop of OpenAI’s offerings.

    “I’m super proud of what we’ve all built together since starting in my apartment 8 years ago. We’ve ben through tough & great times together, accomplishing so much despite all the reasons it should have been impossible,” wrote Brockman in a message to OpenAI team. “But based on today’s news, I quit. Genuinely wishing you all nothing but the best. I continue to believe in the mission of creating safe AGI that benefits all of humanity.”

    Earlier on Friday, OpenAI said Altman had left the firm after losing the confidence of the board. OpenAI said Altman was leaving the firm after a “deliberative review process” by the board” concluded that he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with the board, which hindered “its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”

    The announcement comes less than two weeks after OpenAI held its maiden developer conference, where Altman shared that ChatGPT had amassed 100 million users. Microsoft chief Satya Nadella, who was a chief guest at the conference, said “we love you guys.” In a later interview with FT, Altman said he expected to raise “a lot more” from Microsoft and other investors in the future.

    “We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world,” Nadella said in a statement Friday.

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    Manish Singh

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