Why the departure of OpenAI’s data center chief is not a good look

In a concerning development for OpenAI, the company has lost another high-profile executive, this time the chief of its data center operations. Chris Malone, previously in charge of building out OpenAI's ambitious Stargate data center project, left the company last week. This departure comes amid a series of senior leadership changes at OpenAI in 2026, totaling 13 departures.

Malone's exit marks the second time in 18 months that a leader overseeing OpenAI's infrastructure build-out has left the company, following his reassignment to a co-head role within a technical engineering team earlier this year. Malone's departure is notable given the exorbitant costs of data centers, a significant factor behind the massive investments made by major AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic.

These labs require substantial computing power for serving customer demand and supporting their own research and development, with OpenAI projecting a compute budget of roughly $750 billion through 2030. The company is now leasing entire data center facilities and signing long-term leases, such as a 10-gigawatt data center lease in Ohio with SoftBank's SB Energy.

Malone's exit is just one of several senior departures at OpenAI in the past year, including the chief revenue officer, Denise Dresser; the longtime COO, Brad Lightcap; and product and business chief, Fidji Simo. Bill Gates has expressed growing concerns over the rapid pace of AI development and its potential societal impacts, warning that society is not adequately preparing for the changes AI will bring.

Gates suggests creating "human reserved" jobs, levying taxes on AI tokens and robots, and establishing overarching regulatory bodies to address the multifaceted challenges posed by AI technologies.