OpenAI's head of data centers exits amid mounting executive departures

OpenAI's head of data centers, Chris Malone, has left the company, the Wall Street Journal reported, a departure TechCrunch flags as especially notable because he was responsible for executing the AI lab's data center strategy.

A short run at a high-stakes job

Malone joined OpenAI in March 2025 after nearly five years at Meta and more than a decade at Google before that, making his tenure at the AI company relatively short. His arrival came shortly after the launch of the Stargate Project, which TechCrunch describes as a $500 million data center initiative championed by the Trump administration to develop data centers in the U.S., with OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, SoftBank and Microsoft counted among its key partners.

No reason for the departure has been reported. TechCrunch points out that with the AI infrastructure buildout in full swing across the industry, data center strategy has become one of the most closely watched roles at any AI lab, which makes turnover in that seat particularly surprising.

OpenAI points to a reorganization

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 with "clear leadership" and the technical expertise to carry out its plans.

According to the Wall Street Journal, that reorganization meant Malone stopped reporting directly to OpenAI President Greg Brockman and began reporting to Vice President Sachin Katti, who took over leadership of the group. Several other executives are said to be overseeing the data center strategy: Uday Ruddarraju leads the data center team, Brent Mayo leads the build and delivery program, and Spas Lazarov, a veteran of the data center and energy industries, leads all data center engineering.

Part of a broader exodus

Malone is far from alone. Business Insider has tallied 13 executive departures from OpenAI in 2026, several of them in just the past month, and TechCrunch emphasizes that these are senior seats, not junior staff.

Two weeks ago, the company replaced chief revenue officer Denise Dresser, who had been with OpenAI only about eight months. Two days before her departure was announced, OpenAI lost Brad Lightcap, one of its longest-serving executives and its former chief operating officer, who said he was "starting something new" without giving details.

About a month earlier, Fidji Simo, the product and business chief who reported directly to CEO Sam Altman and was widely described as the company's de facto second-in-command, stepped down to recover from a "chronic illness" and remains in an advisory role. The safety and ethics side has seen churn as well: the company's head of ethics, Chloé Bakalar, left in July, and last week it was reported that OpenAI disbanded its preparedness team, the unit assessing whether its models could pose catastrophic risks. Bill Peebles, former head of the now defunct Sora image generator, left after his project was shut down, and chief marketing officer Kate Rouch departed in April, reportedly for health reasons.

Co-founder Greg Brockman has tried to play down the significance of the exodus, arguing that the intense "spotlight" on OpenAI means "every departure gets scrutinized in a way that it doesn't otherwise."

The IPO backdrop

The churn comes as OpenAI prepares for a public listing. Its IPO, originally expected this year, has reportedly been pushed to 2027, and the company is undergoing the kind of reputational vetting that precedes any listing. TechCrunch notes that concerns have arisen over whether the company is overvalued and whether its profitability matches the enormous investments being made in the lab — doubts the string of outgoing executives has done nothing to quiet.

Why it matters

Data center capacity is now as strategically important to AI labs as model research, given the compute demands of frontier training runs and the scale of commitments like Stargate. Losing the executive charged with executing that buildout — in the middle of an industry-wide infrastructure race — raises questions about continuity and execution risk at OpenAI precisely when its capital plans are under the most scrutiny. Layered onto a dozen-plus senior exits, including from the safety functions meant to reassure regulators and investors, the departure hands ammunition to skeptics questioning the company's valuation ahead of a delayed IPO.