OpenAI loses data center chief as executive exodus deepens ahead of IPO

OpenAI has lost yet another senior executive, this time the head of its data center strategy. Chris Malone, who joined the company in March 2025 after nearly five years at Meta and over a decade at Google, left last week, according to the Wall Street Journal. His tenure at OpenAI was notably short, and his exit comes at a critical time for the company's infrastructure ambitions.

Malone's role was central to the Stargate Project, the $500 million data center initiative championed by the Trump administration, with OpenAI as a key partner alongside Oracle, Nvidia, SoftBank, and Microsoft. As the AI infrastructure buildout accelerates across the industry, the data center strategy seat has become one of the most closely watched positions at any lab, making turnover there especially striking.

In a statement to TechCrunch, OpenAI said it had "recently reorganized" its infrastructure organization "to support the scale and pace of our work," adding that it has "a strong, deeply experienced data center team in place." As part of that reorganization, Malone stopped reporting directly to president Greg Brockman and instead reported to vice president Sachin Katti, who took over leadership of the group.

A pattern of departures

Malone's exit is the latest in a wave of more than a dozen executive departures in 2026, according to a Business Insider tally. The list includes some of the company's most senior figures:

• Denise Dresser, chief revenue officer, replaced after just eight months.
• Brad Lightcap, longtime COO, left two days after Dresser's departure was announced, saying he would be "starting something new."
• Fidji Simo, product and business chief and de facto second-in-command, stepped down about a month earlier citing a chronic illness, though she remains in an advisory role.
• Chloé Bakalar, head of ethics, departed in July.
• Bill Peebles, head of the now-disbanded Sora image generator, left after that project was shut down.
• Kate Rouch, chief marketing officer, left in April for health reasons.

The company has also disbanded its preparedness team, which was tasked with assessing catastrophic risks from AI models. Co-founder Greg Brockman has downplayed the churn, noting that the "spotlight" on OpenAI means "every departure gets scrutinized in a way that it doesn't otherwise."

Questions ahead of IPO

The exits are raising questions as OpenAI prepares for a public listing. Originally expected this year, the IPO has reportedly slipped to 2027, and the company is undergoing a reputational vetting typical of any looming listing. Concerns about overvaluation and profitability relative to massive infrastructure investments persist, and the executive exodus hasn't quieted those doubts.