Former OpenAI executive Jan Leike announced on Tuesday that he has joined Anthropic, OpenAI’s Amazon-backed rival. Leike resigned from OpenAI less than two weeks ago, publicly criticizing the company for prioritizing “shiny products” over essential “safety culture and processes.”
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Leike posted on X, expressing his enthusiasm for his new role at Anthropic. Interestingly, he also urged interested readers to join him and his team.
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Jan Leike and others leave OpenAI
Leike’s move follows a series of notable departures from OpenAI. Just last week, policy researcher Gretchen Krueger announced her resignation, sharing similar concerns about the company’s direction.
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In response to these exits, Microsoft-backed OpenAI has established a safety committee overseen by board members Bret Taylor, Sam Altman, Nicole Seligman, and Adam D’Angelo. The company also revealed plans to test its “next frontier model.”
Leike co-led the Superalignment team at OpenAI with co-founder Ilya Sutskever. This team was responsible for ensuring that superintelligent AI systems remain controllable and safe. The team was disbanded after the resignations — and its members were reassigned to core research roles.
Anthropic, established in 2021 by former OpenAI employees and execs, recently secured a $4 billion investment from Amazon. Leike’s new employer has positioned itself as more safety-focused compared to its competitors — and uses Amazon Web Services’ cloud infrastructure for developing its large language models.