OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announces she's leaving the company

"After much reflection, I have made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI," she wrote in a memo to OpenAI, which she also published on X, adding, "There's never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right."

Murati is the latest in a growing line of high-level execs to depart the high-valued startup. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and former safety leader Jan Leike announced their departures in May. Co-founder John Schulman said last month that he was leaving to join rival Anthropic.

Murati also wrote that she is "stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration. For now, my primary focus is doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, maintaining the momentum we've built."

OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed startup behind ChatGPT and SearchGPT, is currently pursuing a funding round that would value the company at more than $150 billion, according to sources familiar with the situation who asked not to be named because details of the round haven't been made public. Thrive Capital is leading the round and plans to invest $1 billion, and Tiger Global is planning to join as well. Microsoft, Nvidia and Apple are reportedly also in talks to invest.

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