Has Sora just vanished like that? On the eve of the IPO, the core team took off—now Altman’s governance crisis is back again… twice over.

On April 18th, OpenAI announced the departure of three key executives during the IPO advancement phase: Sora head Bill Peebles, Vice President of AI for Science Kevin Weil, and Enterprise Applications CTO Srinivas Narayanan. Sora was shut down, and the team shifted to the core product line Codex, with AI tools and research teams integrated into internal projects. Shareholders are concerned about potential conflicts of interest between Altman and personal investments, with private discussions involving Chairman Bret Taylor taking over. The company's valuation is approximately $850 billion as it advances the IPO, and governance conflicts have once again become a market focus, as Altman was previously dismissed by the board.