Fidji Simo is stepping down from OpenAI’s number. 2 turns

Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s No. 2 CEO, will step down from her full-time role, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In a memo to staff Thursday, Simo said her ongoing medical leave has proven longer and more difficult than expected, and that she will be transitioning to a part-time consulting role instead. Simo joined OpenAI’s Board of Directors in 2024 and joined OpenAI in May 2025 as Chief Applications Officer, then a newly created position reporting directly to Sam Altman that has unified the company’s business and product operations.

The move was integrated into a broader shift in reporting: COO Brad Lightcap, CFO Sarah Friar, and CPO Kevin Weil all began reporting to it, while Altman stepped back to focus on research, computing and safety.

Simo first revealed her health issues in April, when she announced she was taking medical leave due to a relapse of a neuro-immune condition. In the same memo that went public, Lightcap was transitioning to a new role in “special projects” and CMO Kate Rouch was leaving the company to focus on cancer recovery. Will has also since left the company.

Simo comes to OpenAI from Instacart, where she had been CEO since 2021 and led the company through its IPO in 2023, and before that she spent more than a decade at Meta, including running the Facebook app.

Simo’s decision to step back permanently leaves Altman searching for a successor while OpenAI itself eyes a potential IPO and races to fill the enterprise gap with Anthropic. She has been widely viewed as a potential candidate to take on more responsibility once OpenAI goes public, making this a real gap for CEO Sam Altman to fill.

Simo has primarily focused on growing OpenAI’s consumer business. But ChatGPT’s growth slowed late last year, and it missed internal revenue targets, leading the company to rely more heavily on programming tools instead, an area in which it had and continues to lag, so far, behind Anthropic.