11 people moved from Anthropic to OpenAI in 2026 — four in February alone, most into technical and safety roles
Asked:
“Who has OpenAI hired from Anthropic this year?”
As of November 1, 2026, the public record supports a minimum of 11 people who moved directly from an Anthropic employee role or formal Anthropic research fellowship into an OpenAI staff role during 2026 — 6 direct employee-to-employee transfers and 5 fellowship-to-staff moves. Neither company publishes a competitor-hire roster, so this is a verifiable floor, not a total; most lesser-publicized moves are sourced to self-reported LinkedIn profiles.
Direct employee-to-employee transferAnthropic fellowship to OpenAI staff — month shown is the OpenAI start month from public profiles
February was the single biggest month: 4 of the 11 moves, including OpenAI’s new Head of Preparedness, Dylan Scandinaro, the only move with press coverage.
newsletter.aiforwork.co9 of 11 moves landed in technical, safety, preparedness, developer-infrastructure, or investigations roles; only Chris Nam (sales) and Kareem Primo (public sector) were go-to-market.
linkedin.comAll 5 fellowship alumni joined as Member of Technical Staff, and two — Paul Rosu and Jiawei Zhang — moved into safety or preparedness work at OpenAI.
paul-rosu.comThe flow ran steadily through the year: after the February cluster, at least one move landed in every month from April through August.
linkedin.com
Methodology and caveats. This is not an official or exhaustive disclosure. It is a deduplicated, publicly verifiable minimum from broad and targeted web searches. Excluded: one person whose Anthropic/OpenAI entries were client engagements through a staffing firm, one uncorroborated low-credibility profile claim, and OpenAI fellowship participants who are not staff hires. Dates are public-profile start months unless an announcement date was available. LinkedIn is the principal source for most moves; only the Scandinaro appointment received press coverage.
All 11 moves
| Person | Joined | Path | Anthropic role | OpenAI role | Source |
|---|
Public-record minimum of 11 Anthropic-to-OpenAI moves in 2026, deduplicated from 23 source rows across two search passes; compiled as of 2026-11-01. Each row records prior Anthropic role, OpenAI role, and start month from the linked public profile, personal site, or press report. Two rows excluded as non-employment or uncorroborated; departure months omitted from the chart for space.