By Obinna Uballa
OpenAI has appointed Mike Liberatore, the former chief financial officer of Elon Musk’s xAI, as its new business finance officer, a move set to intensify the growing rivalry between Musk and OpenAI’s chief executive Sam Altman.
Liberatore, who left xAI in July after just three months, will oversee OpenAI’s vast infrastructure spending, CNBC reported.
He begins Tuesday and will report to CFO Sarah Friar, while working closely with Greg Brockman’s team, which handles the company’s computing and capital strategy, according to a spokesperson.
The high-profile hire is the latest flashpoint in the Altman versus Musk battle, the report said. Once collaborators in co-founding OpenAI in 2015, the two have since become fierce adversaries.
Musk, who sued Altman and OpenAI last year for breach of contract, has sought to block the company’s transition into a for-profit structure. OpenAI last week moved closer to that goal, announcing that its nonprofit parent would retain oversight while also holding an equity stake of more than $100 billion.
OpenAI, recently valued at $500 billion, has been scaling up its compute commitments, including a $300 billion deal with Oracle.
Liberatore brings extensive experience, having spent nearly nine years at Airbnb and held senior finance roles at SquareTrade, eBay, and PayPal, the report said.
At xAI, he helped arrange a $5 billion debt sale and a $5 billion equity raise, backed partly by SpaceX, as well as greenlighting major data centre expansion plans. His exit, first reported by The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, followed a string of senior departures from Musk’s startup.
