GoKawiilGas turbines made by GE Vernova, at the on-site natural gas plant under construction during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025.
OpenAI 's head of data centers, Chris Malone, has left the company, CNBC confirmed, adding to the wave of recent executive departures at the artificial intelligence lab.
Malone joined OpenAI in March of 2025 after previously working on data center infrastructure as a "distinguished engineer" at both Meta and Google , according to his LinkedIn. He helped oversee OpenAI's ambitious infrastructure plans, which include a target to spend roughly $600 billion on compute by 2030.
"We recently reorganized our infrastructure organization to support the scale and pace of our work," an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. "We have a strong, deeply experienced data center team in place, with clear leadership and the technical expertise to execute our plans."
Malone's exit comes during a particularly tense moment for AI infrastructure in the U.S., where backlash against data centers is mounting rapidly. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, or NRSC, warned last week that data centers have become a "sleeper issue" for the entire midterm election cycle, according to a memo obtained by CNBC.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report Malone's departure.