OpenAI Hires xAI’s Former Finance Chief Amid Rising Musk-Altman Rivalry

OpenAI has hired Mike Liberatore, the former finance chief of Elon Musk’s xAI, as a senior finance executive. Liberatore began his new role at OpenAI on Tuesday, according to an OpenAI spokesperson who confirmed the hire to CNBC. He also updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect the move. He will report to OpenAI’s Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar and work closely with Greg Brockman’s team, which manages the company’s contracts and capital strategy for its computing infrastructure. Liberatore’s departure from xAI in July followed a three-month tenure as CFO. His exit is part of a broader wave of high-level departures at xAI, including Igor Babuschkin, the founder who launched the company with Musk in 2023, who left last month. Additionally, xAI laid off at least 500 employees from its data annotation team, and at least nine senior staff members appear to have been let go, as their Slack accounts were deactivated last week, according to screenshots reviewed by Business Insider. Prior to joining xAI, Liberatore spent nearly nine years at Airbnb, where he held key finance leadership roles. He also worked in senior finance positions at SquareTrade, eBay, and PayPal, as noted on his LinkedIn profile. The hire comes amid escalating tensions between Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Musk recently threatened to sue Apple, accusing the company of favoring OpenAI in the App Store. In response, Altman highlighted Musk’s control over X, formerly Twitter. A federal judge in Oakland, California, has scheduled a trial date for March 2026 in Musk’s civil racketeering lawsuit against Altman, Brockman, OpenAI, and Microsoft. The two co-founded OpenAI years ago, but Musk left the organization in 2018 to launch xAI.