Chris Malone, OpenAI's head of data centers, has left the company, according to TechCrunch and Bloomberg.
Malone joined OpenAI in March 2025 after working on data center infrastructure at Meta and Google, and helped oversee the company's buildout tied to Stargate, its joint venture with Oracle and SoftBank, Bloomberg reported. OpenAI said it "recently reorganized" its "infrastructure organization to support the scale and pace of our work," with leadership shifting so the group now reports to vice president Sachin Katti instead of president Greg Brockman, according to TechCrunch.
Malone's exit adds to a wave of senior departures at OpenAI in 2026, including chief operating officer Brad Lightcap, chief revenue officer Denise Dresser and product and business chief Fidji Simo, TechCrunch reported.
The company said it has "a strong, deeply experienced data center team in place, with clear leadership and the technical expertise to execute our plans," according to Bloomberg.
OpenAI's infrastructure commitments run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and it is heading toward a 2027 IPO. Turnover at the top of the team building that infrastructure is the kind of detail investors and partners locked into multi-year compute deals will be watching closely.