OpenAI hires xAI's former finance chief

OpenAI has recently appointed Mike Liberatore, the former finance chief of xAI, as a senior finance executive. Starting his new role on Tuesday, Liberatore will report directly to Sarah Friar, the chief financial officer of OpenAI, and collaborate with Greg Brockman's team, which manages the contracts and capital related to the company's computing strategy. Liberatore's transition to OpenAI follows his departure from xAI in July, where he served as CFO for just three months. His exit is part of a larger trend of significant departures at xAI, which was founded by Elon Musk in 2023. Notably, Igor Babuschkin, a co-founder at xAI, also left the company last month. In addition, xAI recently undertook substantial layoffs, cutting at least 500 jobs from its data annotation team, as reported by Business Insider. During his nearly nine-year tenure at Airbnb, Liberatore gained extensive experience in senior finance positions, having also served at SquareTrade, eBay, and PayPal. His hiring comes at a time when tensions between industry giants Sam Altman and Elon Musk are escalating. Recently, Musk threatened legal action against Apple, accusing them of bias in favor of OpenAI. In a reciprocal response, Altman pointed out Musk's influence over the platform X. The legal battle is heating up, with a federal judge in Oakland, California, scheduling a trial date for March 2026 concerning Musk's civil racketeering lawsuit against Altman, Brockman, OpenAI, and Microsoft. This follows the complex history between Altman and Musk, who co-founded OpenAI before Musk's departure in 2018 to establish xAI.