OpenAI Faces Significant Talent Exodus in 2025

OpenAI experienced a significant number of high-profile departures in 2025, with at least 11 scientists and executives leaving the company. A major trend was the migration of talent to Meta's Superintelligence Lab, where more than half a dozen researchers relocated during the summer.

Notable departures included Jason Wei, Zhiqing Sun, Hyung Won Chung, Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu, Hongyu Ren, and Shuchao Bi. Additionally, executive leadership changes occurred, including the resignations of Chief People Officer Julia Villagra and Chief Communications Officer Hannah Wong.

Former board member Larry Summers also resigned in November. Former VP of Research Liam Fedus left to co-found an AI startup named Periodic Labs, aiming to create an AI scientist. These exits follow a previous exodus of top executives in 2024, leaving CEO Sam Altman as one of only two remaining members of the original founding team.

The summer of 2025 saw a concentrated movement of talent from OpenAI to Meta. At least seven researchers and scientists departed to join Meta's billion-dollar effort to strengthen its AI team at the Superintelligence Lab.

Among the researchers who left for Meta in July were:

• Jason Wei, who worked on OpenAI's o1 and deep research models.
• Zhiqing Sun, a research scientist.
• Hyung Won Chung, who posted on LinkedIn about building from a "clean slate with a truly talent-dense team."
• Shengjia Zhao, who became the chief scientist of the Meta Superintelligence Lab after co-creating ChatGPT and GPT-4.

Other researchers making the move included Jiahui Yu, who led the Perception team, Hongyu Ren, a core contributor to GPT-4o, and Shuchao Bi, who focused on multimodal and reinforcement learning. Zhao is noted to be working directly with Mark Zuckerberg and Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang.

Executive turnover at OpenAI continued in 2025 following a restructuring effort the previous year. In August, Julia Villagra resigned as chief people officer after being promoted to the role in March. By the end of the year, chief communications officer Hannah Wong announced her departure for her "next chapter," with Lindsey Held Bolton taking over as interim lead.

Board-level changes also occurred. Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary and Harvard president, resigned from the OpenAI board in November. This resignation followed the release of email exchanges between Summers and Jeffrey Epstein by a House panel.

These departures come after the company saw an exodus of top executives in 2024, including chief technology officer Mira Murati, chief research officer Bob McGrew, and vice president of research Barret Zoph. As a result, CEO Sam Altman is now one of only two active remaining members of the company's original 11-person founding team.

Some former employees left to pursue entrepreneurial or research opportunities outside of major tech firms. Liam Fedus, the former vice president of research and post-training, left OpenAI in March. In September, he co-founded an AI startup called Periodic Labs, which aims to create an AI scientist.

Additionally, Tom Cunningham, a data scientist and economic researcher, resigned in November. He subsequently joined Model Evaluation and Threat Research, a non-profit research institute dedicated to evaluating AI models' capabilities and safety levels.