OpenAI co-founder quits, joins rival company Anthropic

John Schulman, one of the co-founders of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, has announced his departure to join rival firm Anthropic.

In a social media post on platform X late Monday, Schulman expressed his desire to deepen his focus on AI alignment and return to hands-on technical work.

"This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work," Schulman stated in his post.

The move comes amid significant personnel changes at OpenAI. Greg Brockman, OpenAI's President and co-founder, announced he would take a sabbatical until the end of the year.

Peter Deng, a product manager who joined OpenAI last year, has also exited the company. These developments were first reported by The Information.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The company has faced several staffing shifts recently, with AI safety leader Aleksander Madry being reassigned in July.

Additionally, co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left the company in May, and founding member Andrej Karpathy departed in February to launch an AI-integrated education platform.

In a related development, Tesla CEO and OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk revived his lawsuit against the company and CEO Sam Altman on Monday. Musk alleged that OpenAI prioritised profits and commercial interests over public good.

As Schulman embarks on his new role at Anthropic, OpenAI continues to navigate through a series of leadership changes, reflecting the dynamic and rapidly evolving nature of the AI industry.