The OpenAI Safety Exodus: 25+ Senior Researchers Departed, Superalignment Team Disbanded

While Big Tech operators have been arriving, safety-focused leadership has been departing. The exodus tells a story the hiring announcements don’t.

Wave 1: The Superalignment Collapse (May 2024)

• Ilya Sutskever — Co-founder, Chief Scientist, nearly a decade
• Jan Leike — Superalignment Co-lead: “Reached breaking point”
• Superalignment Team: DISBANDED (20% compute promise never delivered)

Wave 2: The Leadership Shakeup (September 2024)

• Mira Murati — CTO, 6 years at OpenAI
• Bob McGrew — Chief Research Officer
• Barret Zoph — VP of Research, Post-training lead

Wave 3: The Continuing Drain (Ongoing)

• Hannah Wong — Chief Comms Officer (4 months after promotion)
• Tom Cunningham — Economics Researcher (“de facto advocacy arm”)
• Miles Brundage — Policy Research Head (“hard to publish on important topics”)

25+ senior departures. What remains is an organization optimized for shipping products and closing deals — not the careful work of ensuring AI remains beneficial.

This is part of a comprehensive analysis. Read the full analysis on The Business Engineer.