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OpenAI founder Sam Altman speaks during the G20 Innovation Ministerial on September 2, 2026. Sean Rayford/Getty Images

OpenAI’s chief communications officer stepped down 9 months ago — and it still can't fill the role. Why its top choice said no, thanks

Rebecca Payne
Sep 29, 2026
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Being able to manage a crisis effectively is part of the job description for a chief communications officer, but what if the crisis is the possibility of an impending AI apocalypse?

For whoever decides to take on the role as head of communications at OpenAI, dealing with that exact perception from the public will be a big part of the job. And so far, the company hasn’t been able to fill the position after the previous chief communications officer stepped down nine months ago.

A year of crises

OpenAI’s former head of communications, Hannah Wong, left the post in January 2026. She had been with the company for nearly five years and steered it through some major milestones, including the launch of ChatGPT.

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Since Wong left, OpenAI has faced some major headlines. The company made a deal with the Pentagon at the end of February that raised concerns over the military’s use of AI, including its possible use for domestic surveillance. Then there was a trial in May that saw the company face off against Elon Musk.

And in July, perhaps the biggest crisis of all: the revelation that its AI agents had escaped a testing sandbox, accessed the internet and hacked the software company Hugging Face. Following the Hugging Face incident, more than 1,000 employees from AI companies signed a letter urging a slowdown of AI development.

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Two months later, in a resignation heard around the world, Jacob Coxon shared on X that he had quit his job as a researcher at Anthropic over concerns that both OpenAI and Anthropic were “gambling with our lives,” adding that, “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

On Sept. 28, OpenAI announced it was scrapping the release of its new AI model, GPT-6.1 Astra, due to safety concerns.

With all of this in mind, directing communications at OpenAI is far from your run-of-the-mill role, and this could explain why the company has spent the better part of a year searching for Wong’s replacement.

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Top pick reportedly says no

As Fortune recently reported, OpenAI’s top choice to fill the position — Jill Hazelbaker, currently president and chief corporate affairs officer at Uber — turned down the job in the spring. Hazelbaker declined Fortune’s request for comment on the report.

The outlet adds that OpenAI “ramped up” its search for a chief communications officer in the summer, tapping Daversa Partners, a tech-focused executive search firm, for help.

“The pool of eligible candidates willing and able to take on such a high-pressure, high-profile role is relatively small,” Fortune reported.

Meanwhile, the role could be key if the company moves forward with its anticipated initial public offering.

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“The issue isn’t whether OpenAI can operate without a chief communications officer. They most certainly can,” Paul Argenti, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, told Fortune.

“The issue is whether they are going to face constant controversy, [and] whether recurring reputation challenges lead investors to assign a higher risk premium, and that would be a lower IPO valuation,” Argenti said.

A ‘consequential’ role

Commenting on the Fortune report on LinkedIn, Noah Greenberg — CEO of content distribution platform Stacker — said the long search pointed to OpenAI looking for top talent, not that the role was unfillable.

“The reality is these companies only settle for A+ talent. Yes, convincing A+ talent to work for you when you have a s—storm of crises each month is much more difficult, but it does say something about a hiring philosophy: they are waiting for the person that they know is A+ and can do the job well,” Greenberg said.

Brigitte Tousignant, head of communications for Hugging Face, recently said the Fortune report highlights that “OpenAI taking +9 months to find the right chief comms officer is a reminder of how consequential the role can be.”

“Yet across tech, comms continues to be undervalued and often treated as cleanup,” Tousignant added. “In AI, you need transparency and clear messaging to build trust, and earning it starts by treating comms as strategy instead of support.”

Whatever the reasons for OpenAI’s protracted search for a new chief communications officer, there’s no doubt whoever takes the post has their work cut out for them.

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Rebecca Payne Contributor

Rebecca Payne has more than a decade of experience editing and producing both local and national daily newspapers. She's worked on the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Metro, Canada's National Observer, the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.

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