OpenAI Communications Chief Is Stepping Down

Hannah Wong, the Chief Communication Officer responsible for shaping how the world sees OpenAI has announced she’s leaving the company after nearly five years. Her departure in January marks the end of a period that saw the company transform from a relatively unknown research organisation into one of the most talked-about names in technology.

Wong shared the news with her colleagues this week, explaining that after a lot of thinking, she felt it was time to move on to the next part of her career. She described her time at OpenAI as intense and deeply meaningful, but also said there’s never really a perfect moment to say goodbye to a place you care about so much. Still, with ChatGPT celebrating its third birthday and the company heading into another year with big plans, she felt the timing made sense.

The decision brings another change to OpenAI’s leadership team, which has seen several important people leave over the past year. Wong’s exit is particularly significant because she was the company’s first ever chief communications officer, a title she officially received just four months ago in August. Before that, she held other senior positions handling how OpenAI talked to the public, the media, and government officials.

For anyone who’s followed OpenAI’s journey, Wong’s name might not be as familiar as CEO Sam Altman or the various researchers who develop the technology. But behind the scenes, she played a crucial role in managing how the company presented itself during some of its most challenging moments. Her job involved explaining complicated ideas about artificial intelligence in ways that regular people could understand, handling questions from journalists, and making sure OpenAI’s message stayed consistent even when things got messy.

One of those messy moments happened in November last year, during what people inside the company now call “the blip.” This was when Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, was suddenly fired by the board of directors, only to be brought back just a few days later after a dramatic series of events that included threats from employees to quit and pressure from investors. The whole situation played out very publicly, with news outlets around the world covering every twist and turn. Wong was right in the middle of that storm, trying to manage the communications nightmare while the company seemed like it might fall apart completely.

According to reports from that time, about 93 percent of OpenAI’s employees threatened to leave if Altman wasn’t brought back. The situation was so bad that ChatGPT itself could have imploded completely if things had gone differently. Wong’s ability to navigate that crisis without letting the whole thing spiral even further out of control was seen as absolutely crucial. She had to figure out what to say, when to say it, and how to keep everyone from panicking while the leadership sorted out what was happening.

Beyond crisis management, Wong also oversaw communications as ChatGPT went from being an interesting experiment to one of the biggest consumer products in the world. The app reportedly reached something like 800 million users earlier this year, making it one of the fastest-growing applications in history.

When Wong joined OpenAI back in 2021, the company looked very different from what it is today. It was still primarily known as a research lab focused on developing artificial general intelligence, which is basically the goal of creating machines that can think and learn like humans. Most people outside the tech world hadn’t heard of OpenAI, and ChatGPT didn’t even exist yet. Over the next four years, Wong helped build up the communications team from just a few people to a full department capable of handling everything from product launches to dealing with difficult questions from reporters.

Before OpenAI, Wong worked at Apple, where she held senior positions in public relations and communications. She worked on various products and services including Apple Pay, Apple Card, iCloud, and iPad. That experience at one of the world’s most secretive and carefully managed technology companies likely prepared her well for the challenges she would face at OpenAI, where every announcement and statement gets picked apart by the media, competitors, and people worried about the implications of artificial intelligence.

In statements about her departure, both Sam Altman and Fidji Simo, who serves as CEO of applications at OpenAI, praised Wong’s contributions. They said she played a defining role in shaping how people understand OpenAI and the work the company does. They highlighted her extraordinary ability to take complex ideas and explain them clearly, and to do it with care and grace. They expressed deep gratitude for her leadership and partnership over the past five years.

With Wong leaving, OpenAI has already arranged for someone to take over on a temporary basis. Lindsey Held Bolton, who currently serves as vice president of communications at the company, will lead the communications team while they search for Wong’s permanent replacement. Bolton will report to Kate Rouch, who is OpenAI’s chief marketing officer. Rouch will be in charge of finding and hiring the next communications chief.

Her departure is part of a broader pattern of leadership changes at OpenAI throughout the year. Several other senior executives and researchers have left the company in recent months. In September, Mira Murati, who was the chief technology officer, announced she was leaving along with two other research leaders. Before that, Ilya Sutskever, who was one of the company’s co-founders and chief scientist, also departed. Other employees in various roles have left as well, citing different reasons for their decisions.

This pattern of people leaving has raised questions about what’s happening inside OpenAI and whether there are underlying problems causing talented people to move on. Some observers worry about what this means for the company’s stability, especially at a time when it faces increasing competition from other companies working on artificial intelligence, growing attention from government regulators trying to figure out how to handle this technology, and the challenge of turning itself from a research organization into a sustainable business.

The timing of these departures is particularly notable because OpenAI is at such a critical point in its development. The company has gone from being primarily funded by investors and focused on research to becoming a commercial operation that needs to generate revenue and compete with giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others who are all racing to dominate the artificial intelligence space. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and integrated its technology into products like Bing and Office, but the relationship between the two companies is complex and involves careful navigation.

Finding someone to replace Wong won’t be easy. The next communications chief will need to understand not just how to handle media relations and craft messages, but also grasp the technical complexities of artificial intelligence well enough to explain them to audiences ranging from everyday users to sophisticated policymakers. They’ll need to be ready for intense scrutiny, constant controversy, and the pressure that comes with representing one of the most influential and debated companies in technology.

They’ll also need to help OpenAI maintain public trust while the company continues releasing new products and navigating all the legal, ethical, and competitive challenges that come with being a leader in artificial intelligence. Questions about safety, about whether technology might take people’s jobs, about privacy, about potential misuse, and about what happens if something goes wrong are constant concerns that require careful, thoughtful communication.

For OpenAI, losing someone who successfully steered communications through such a turbulent period represents both a challenge and an opportunity.