OpenAI’s Head of Safety, Lilian Weng, has announced she will leave the company after around six years in various roles, sharing her decision in a post on X (formerly Twitter) and citing a need for a break and interest in exploring personal projects. As VP of Safety, Weng played a vital role in guiding safety research and policy initiatives. Her departure follows other high-profile exits, including Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder and former Chief Scientist, who resigned in May 2024, and Jan Leike, who co-led OpenAI’s alignment team and left during the same month, publicly criticizing the company’s safety culture. Weng’s exit coincided with a broader organizational restructure at OpenAI aimed at enhancing integration between safety and research teams, as first reported by WIRED. A memo from Mark Chen, OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, highlighted increasing demands on safety teams due to training models at a significantly faster rate. Looking ahead, OpenAI has appointed Saachi Jain, who previously led safety teams, as interim head of safety systems, reporting to Mia Glaese, who is expanding her role to include both research and safety.