OpenAI's buildout chief is out as leasing comes back

OpenAI has confirmed that the executive running its data centre buildout has left, and it has already broken up the job he was doing.

Chris Malone, its head of data centers, is no longer with the company, an OpenAI spokesperson told Dina Bass at Bloomberg on Monday. Anissa Gardizy broke the story earlier that day for The Wall Street Journal.

Malone joined in March 2025, shortly after OpenAI announced Stargate. That is the programme it runs with Oracle and SoftBank to build the computing capacity its models need, and its flagship site is still going up in Abilene, Texas.

The job did not stay as one job

OpenAI has made leadership changes inside its infrastructure team and appointed a chief technology officer to lead computing capacity, the Journal reported.