OpenAI loses data center chief as executive exodus continues

OpenAI has lost another senior executive, and this one is particularly significant: Chris Malone, the company's head of data centers, left last week, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Malone joined OpenAI in March of last year after nearly five years at Meta and more than a decade at Google. His departure cuts short what was already a relatively brief tenure at a time when data center leadership has become one of the most closely watched roles in AI. The reasons for his exit are not entirely clear, but the move lands as the industry's infrastructure buildout accelerates and OpenAI pushes ahead on the Stargate Project, the $500 billion initiative championed by the Trump administration to develop data centers across the U.S. OpenAI is considered a key partner in that effort alongside Oracle, Nvidia, SoftBank, and Microsoft.

In a statement to TechCrunch about Malone's departure, OpenAI said it had "recently reorganized" its "infrastructure organization to support the scale and pace of our work." The company added: "We have a strong, deeply experienced data center team in place, with clear leadership and the technical expertise to execute our plans."

As part of that reorganization, per the WSJ, Malone stopped reporting directly to OpenAI president Greg Brockman and began reporting to OpenAI vice president Sachin Katti, who took over leadership of the group. Several other executives are currently overseeing OpenAI's data center strategy, including Uday Ruddarraju, who leads the company's data center team; Brent Mayo, who leads the data center build and delivery program; and Spas Lazarov, a data center and energy industry veteran who leads all data center engineering.

Malone is hardly alone in heading for the door. His exit adds to a string of more than a dozen executive departures this year. Business Insider recently counted 13, with several occurring in just the past month. These are not junior employees; they include some of OpenAI's most senior leaders.

Two weeks ago, OpenAI replaced its chief revenue officer, Denise Dresser, after she had been with the company for only about eight months. Two days before that announcement, the company lost Brad Lightcap, one of its longest-serving executives, who spent years as chief operating officer. Lightcap said he would be "starting something new" but has not shared details. About a month earlier, Fidji Simo, OpenAI's de facto second-in-command, stepped down from her day-to-day role as product and business chief to recover from a chronic illness. She remains with the company in an advisory capacity.

The departures have also hit safety and ethics functions. In July, OpenAI lost its head of ethics, Chloé Bakalar. Last week, reports said OpenAI disbanded its preparedness team, the unit tasked with assessing whether the company's models could create catastrophic risks. Other leaders, such as Bill Peebles, former head of OpenAI's now-defunct AI image generator Sora, left when their projects were wound down. In April, the company also lost chief marketing officer Kate Rouch, who, like Simo, reportedly left for health reasons.

OpenAI's remaining leadership has tried to play down the significance of the talent churn. Co-founder Greg Brockman recently lamented that the intense "spotlight" on the company means "every departure gets scrutinized in a way that it doesn't otherwise."

But the turnover is fueling broader questions as OpenAI prepares for an IPO. The company's public listing, initially expected as soon as this year, has reportedly slipped to 2027. The scrutiny that comes with any large listing has sharpened concerns that OpenAI may be overvalued and that its profitability does not yet justify the enormous investments flowing into the lab. A steady stream of senior exits is unlikely to quiet those doubts.