John Schulman, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, has left the ChatGPT maker for rival Anthropic. Schulman announced his departure in a social media post on X late Monday, stating, “This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work.”
Additionally, OpenAI’s President and co-founder Greg Brockman revealed he is taking a sabbatical through the end of the year, also in a post on X late Monday. The Information initially reported the news, further noting that Peter Deng, a product manager who joined OpenAI last year, has also exited the company.
In a reply post on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed gratitude towards Schulman, acknowledging his contributions by stating Schulman “laid out a significant fraction of what became OpenAI’s initial strategy.”
Schulman’s new role at Anthropic will involve close collaboration with Jan Leike, another senior leader who recently departed OpenAI. Leike’s departure was driven by concerns that safety had become secondary to business priorities at OpenAI.
OpenAI is undergoing significant personnel changes. In July, the company’s AI safety leader Aleksander Madry was reassigned to a different role. Earlier this year, co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left in May, followed by founding member Andrej Karpathy, who exited in February to establish an AI-integrated education platform in July.
On a related note, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, also a co-founder of OpenAI who left the company three years later, revived his lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on Monday. Musk’s lawsuit alleges that the firm has prioritized profits and commercial interests over the public good.
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