OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman has returned to the company as president, three months after announcing he would be taking a leave of absence until the end of the year.
He posted on X, calling his time “the longest vacation” of his life and noting that he was “back to building OpenAI.”
Brockman’s return comes on the heels of OpenAI’s recent $157 billion valuation from its last funding round, which closed over a month ago. During his absence, the company has seen a wave of executive departures and faced increasing scrutiny over its upcoming transition to a for-profit structure and the decision to close certain safety teams.
In late September, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Moratti, announced that she was leaving the company after six and a half years with the company. On the same day, Bob McGraw, Head of Research and Vice President of Research Barrett Zoff also announced their exit. Other departures include co-founder Ilya Sutskever and former safety director Jan Lyke, who joined rival Anthropic in May, as well as co-founder John Shulman and, more recently, Lillian Wong, vice president of research and safety, after seven years at OpenAI.
Brockman, a close ally of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, was with Altman when OpenAI launched as a nonprofit in 2015, with Brockman serving as CTO. Last year, after Altman was temporarily fired, Brockman briefly resigned in protest, expressing shock and disappointment at the board’s decision before quickly reinstating Altman.