Shengjia Zhao, Jason Wei and list of other executives, AI researchers who quit OpenAI in 2025
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is among AI giants in the industry and as the company moved inroads into the expanding AI landscape, it is also the one to go under one of biggest transformation in 2025. OpenAI faced ‘brain drain’ of top-tier talent, losing mostly to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The company suffered the departure of more than a dozen researchers and executives this year, with several lured away by millions in pay and signing bonuses.Currently, OpenAI has only two of the founding members in the team – CEO Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI – from the company’s original 11-person group. The most significant blow came during the summer of 2025, when Meta successfully poached seven core researchers to strengthen its billion-dollar “Superintelligence Lab.”
OpenAI researchers who quit to join Meta
Shengjia Zhao: A co-creator of ChatGPT and GPT-4, Zhao now serves as Chief Scientist of Meta’s Superintelligence Lab. He reports to Mark Zuckerberg.Jason Wei & Zhiqing Sun: These are the two key research scientists who joined Meta in July to work on deep research models.Jiahui Yu: Yu worked as the lead of OpenAI’s Perception team and played an important role in giving large language models image and audio processing capabilities.Hongyu Ren & Shuchao Bi: These were the two core contributors to GPT-4o and but migrated to Meta to develop next-generation AI agents.
C-Suite executives who left OpenAI
OpenAI’s leadership and governance also saw high-profile vacancies.Larry Summers: The former Treasury Secretary resigned from the OpenAI board in November after the release of a House panel report on his past communications with Jeffrey Epstein.Julia Villagra: Villagra resigned in August – five months after her promotion to Chief People Officer.Hannah Wong: Wong quit just before 2024-end. She worked as the Chief Communications Officer.
Other researchers who left OpenAI
Several other researchers also left the company, with some starting their own companies and others to focus on AI safety.Liam Fedus: The former VP of Research and Post-training co-founded Periodic Labs in September. The startup aims to create an autonomous AI scientist.Tom Cunningham: OpenAI’s lead data scientist transitioned to the non-profit sector.
