Today, Clive Chan, a founding member of OpenAI’s in-house chip development initiative, announced via social media that he has departed OpenAI and officially joined Anthropic this week. As the second engineer recruited to OpenAI’s hardware division, Chan reflected on his two-year tenure, highlighting the exceptional concentration of technical expertise within the OpenAI chip team. He explained that his drive to "embark on a fresh challenge from the ground up" motivated his transition to Anthropic.

Chan also referenced OpenAI’s recent collaborative blog post with Broadcom, which outlined plans to begin implementing key deployment objectives in the latter half of 2026. With prior experience at leading tech firms including Tesla, Google, and SpaceX, Chan has consistently focused on AI infrastructure development throughout his career.

This high-profile career move has ignited widespread discussion online, with some netizens humorously comparing it to "switching from Real Madrid to Barcelona." Anthropic’s valuation has surged dramatically in recent months—on June 1, the company announced the completion of its Series H funding round, securing up to $6.5 billion and achieving a post-money valuation of $96.5 billion, placing it on the cusp of entering the exclusive trillion-dollar valuation club.

The exchange of talent between OpenAI and Anthropic continues to draw industry attention. Earlier in May, OpenAI co-founder and prominent AI researcher Andrej Karpathy similarly announced his decision to join Anthropic, further underscoring the competitive dynamics between these two AI leaders.