Noam Shazeer, Vice President of Engineering and Gemini co-lead at Google DeepMind, announced Wednesday he is leaving to join OpenAI.
Sharing the news on X, Shazeer wrote, "I'm excited to share that I'll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there." The American computer scientist added that it was "a difficult decision to move on" and said he was "incredibly proud" of his work at Google.
I'm excited to share that I'll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there.It was a difficult decision to move on.
I'm incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we've built together.
It has been an honor and a pleasure to…— Noam Shazeer (@NoamShazeer) June 18, 2026 Responding to Shazeer's post, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called him "one of the people I have most wanted to work with since the very beginning of OpenAI," adding the partnership was "only 10 years" in the making. noam is one of the people I have most wanted to work with since the very beginning of openai.only took 10 years.i think it will be worth the wait! https://t.co/Hj2fjCywjv— Sam Altman (@sama) June 18, 2026 The Man Who Helped Build Modern AI Shazeer is no ordinary engineer.
