A key executive overseeing OpenAI's data-center build-out, Chris Malone, left the company last week, according to people familiar with the matter, joining a wave of leadership departures ahead of a planned public offering.

Malone joined OpenAI as head of data centers in March 2025, shortly after the company announced Stargate, an ambitious effort with Oracle and SoftBank to build data centers to meet its rapidly growing computing needs.

The Stargate effort got off to a rocky start, and OpenAI shifted toward signing deals with cloud providers rather than developing facilities itself. OpenAI is now reviving some of its internal data-center efforts through projects in which it leases entire facilities, rather than simply renting chips from cloud providers. But other leaders are heading that effort, not Malone, some of the people said.

His departure comes amid a broader exodus at the firm, which is working toward an IPO that is expected in 2027 and racing to catch up to rival Anthropic in sales to business customers. In recent weeks, Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser, Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, and Fidji Simo, who served as second-in-command to Chief Executive Sam Altman, have all left.

Before joining OpenAI, Malone was a distinguished engineer at Meta, where he led the firm's data-center strategy. Prior to that, he was a distinguished engineer and senior director at Google focused on data-center technology.

Malone reported to OpenAI President Greg Brockman until the company reorganized its infrastructure group earlier this year. OpenAI Vice President Sachin Katti took charge of the broader group, reporting to Brockman, while Malone and fellow OpenAI leader Adrian Caulfield became co-heads of a team focused on technical engineering and design for data centers.

"Earlier this year, we reorganized our infrastructure organization to support the scale and pace of our work," an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. "We have a strong, deeply experienced data center team in place, with clear leadership and the technical expertise to execute our plans."

OpenAI has made other leadership changes in recent weeks inside the infrastructure team. In July, OpenAI promoted Uday Ruddarraju to chief technology officer of computing capacity, reporting to Brockman. Brent Mayo, whom OpenAI hired from Elon Musk's xAI earlier this year, reports to Ruddarraju and is responsible for helping ensure the company's computing projects are completed on schedule.

Ruddarraju and Mayo both played key roles in building Musk's Colossus supercomputers in Memphis.

Malone's departure comes as OpenAI is doubling down on securing computing capacity. The firm raised its projected spending on computing power to around $750 billion through 2030, up from a projection of roughly $600 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported in July. Earlier this month, OpenAI also signed a 10-gigawatt data-center lease in Ohio with SoftBank's SB Energy, which is partly backed by an Nvidia financial guarantee.