Ermira Murati, popularly known as Mira Murati, is an Albanian engineer, tech executive, and researcher. Since 2018, Murati has been the chief technology officer of OpenAI, resigning in September 2024. In 2024, Mira Murati’s net worth is estimated at $5 million.
At one point, Murati held the position of interim CEO of OpenAI. She’s been part of the company’s leadership team for years, contributing to the development of several of its products, including the GPT models and Dall-E.
However, Murati’s career didn’t start with OpenAI. She’s been highly successful in business for over a decade now, climbing to great heights thanks to her knowledge and business acumen.
In this article, we’ll explore the career and wealth accumulation of Mira Murati.
Mira Murati’s Net Worth Breakdown:
Mira Murati has only recently become a prominent figure in the technology world. She’s climbed the ranks in the tech industry fast but was only appointed to the CTO position at Sam Altman’s company two years ago.
This leaves us with rather limited information regarding her previous earnings. If we add the fact that she’s a very private person to this, there is pretty much information about her spending or assets, as well.
Still, our detailed research allowed us to dive deep into her career progress, and find some key data to learn where her estimated net worth of $5 million comes from.
| Asset or Income Source | Contribution to Net Worth |
| OpenAI CTO salary | $1-2 million per year |
| Previous salaries | Undisclosed |
| Real estate and other assets | Undisclosed |
| Total Net Worth | $5 million |
Mira Murati Net Worth: Early Life and Educational Background
Ermira Murati was born on December 16, 1988, in Vlorë, Albania. Her parents were both literature teachers, and she has an older sister. She spent her childhood in Albania, taking part in math competitions and Olympiads.
“It started with math. When I was a kid, I just gravitated toward math. I would do problem sets all the time and then eventually did Olympiads and I loved doing that. It was such a passion,” shared Murati in an interview.
Education
As a teenager, aged 16, she moved to Canada to pursue higher education. Murati won a scholarship to study at the Pearson United World College of the Pacific in Canada, from where she graduated in 2005 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. She also completed her last two years of high school in Canada before enrolling in college.
Murati’s senior project at college was to build a hybrid race car. Instead of batteries, she and her project teammates used supercapacitators.
After she graduated from Pearson College, Mira Murati pursued a dual-degree program at Colby College in the United States. In 2011, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, followed by a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Thayer School of Engineering the next year.
Personal Life
Mira Murati is trilingual. She speaks Albanian, Italian, and English. She is reportedly single and lives a very private life.
Mira Murati Net Worth: Her Professional Journey in the Tech Industry
Mira Murati’s career started in 2011, while she was still pursuing her education. Her educational background allowed her to land a summer internship at Goldman Sachs in 2011, where she remained until her graduation.
After Goldman Sachs, Murati worked at Zodiac Aerospace, though there are no further details are not disclosed. The company has since been acquired by one of the world’s biggest aerospace companies, Safran.
Work in Tesla and Leap Motion
When she graduated in 2012, Mira Murati joined Tesla as a senior product manager. She was managing the production of the Model X Electric SUV for Tesla. She remained with Tesla until 2016.
In 2016, Murati joined Leap Motion, which is now called Ultraleap, and developed motion-sensing technology for VR and AR.
Having spent eight years in the sector, Mira Murati was now ready for a new challenge. Her work at Tesla and Leap Motion built her passion for artificial intelligence, so in 2018, she was ready to join a new venture.
“So, in a sense, it was, you know, in my career, it was the place that really catalyzed my interest in working in AI. And then, of course, after working in VR and AR, I just thought, okay, intelligence is really the fundamental property of how the world is going to change. Then, I got more and more interested in just the application side of it, but really understanding what general intelligence meant and how we could build it and how we make things go well for the world if we do build it,” she explained.
Mira Murati Joins OpenAI
OpenAI debuted in 2015 with its original investors including Altman, the company’s CEO, the LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk.
Murati joined OpenAI in 2016 when the company was still a nonprofit. She was OpenAI’s Vice President of Applied Artificial Intelligence, working on OpenAI’s strategy and managing several research teams. In 2020, she was promoted to SVP of research, product, and partnerships, a position she held until 2022 when she was again promoted to CTO.
In OpenAI, Mira Murati led the company’s work on programs such as Dall-E (which uses artificial intelligence to create artwork), Codex, Sora, and ChatGPT, overseeing the research, safety, and product teams. Her work has been instrumental in the successful development of OpenAI’s most notable products to date, including its AI chatbot technology, as well as the Generative Pretrained Transformer (or GPT) series of language models.
Mira Murati is was the chief technology officer of Open AI until she announced her resignation in September 2024 in a post on X, formerly Twitter. She had worked on AI technology for driving assistance and factory robots.
I shared the following note with the OpenAI team today. pic.twitter.com/nsZ4khI06P
— Mira Murati (@miramurati) September 25, 2024
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, recently wrote that Murati “demonstrated the ability to assemble teams with technical expertise, commercial acumen, and a deep appreciation for the importance of mission”.
Microsoft recently invested $13 billion into OpenAI in a partnership that was directly managed by the chief technology officer Mira Murati.
Mira Murati as the Interim CEO of OpenAI
On November 17, 2023, Mira Murati took over as interim CEO of OpenAI after the rather public and abrupt removal of Sam Altman.
“Given her long tenure and close engagement with all aspects of the company, including her experience in AI governance and policy, the board believes she is uniquely qualified for the role and anticipates a seamless transition while it conducts a formal search for a permanent CEO,” the board shared in a statement.
She remained in this position for a short time, being replaced by Emmett Shear only three days later – who was then replaced with Sam Altman when OpenAI reinstated him days later.
When Mira Murati’s stint as CEO ended, she returned to her CTO role.
The reason why Mira Murati didn’t stay in the interim CEO position for long was most likely her public alignment with Altman after the board fired him. Murati reportedly threatened to resign, along with other employees, if the board didn’t reinstate its former CEO.
While the board brought in Emmet Shear to replace both Altman and Murati as a response to the employees’ revolt, the former Twitch boss didn’t stay in this position for long. Employees strengthened their pushback and were supported by stakeholders and investors, as well, so OpenAI decided to get Altman back to his CEO position, with a new board being established.
— Mira Murati (@miramurati) November 22, 2023
Earnings from OpenAI
Murati’s annual income as chief technology officer hasn’t been publicly disclosed. However, sources estimate that it falls in the range of $1 million to $2 million a year, which includes her salary, bonuses, and other compensation.
Sam Altman has publicly said he doesn’t own any shares in OpenAI because he believes there shouldn’t be a profit motive in AI. It’s unknown if Murati has followed suit.
What Else Does Mira Murati Invest In?
At this point, it looks like Mira Murati is entirely focused on her work in the CTO leadership position at OpenAI, tackling a variety of AI projects. If she’s invested in something else, this hasn’t been disclosed to the public just yet.
Assets and Investments
As we previously mentioned, Mira Murati is a very private person. The only details about her life are those linked to her work as a business executive, so we couldn’t find any information about her private assets, investments, or spending habits.
Honors and Public Appearances
In 2023, Time Magazine named Murati in their list of 100 emerging leaders worldwide. She also appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah in 2022, a month before the release of the biggest of her AI projects – ChatGPT.
In 2024, Dartmouth College awarded Mira Murati an honorary Doctor of Science for her work in technology, artificial intelligence, and engineering.
What Can We Learn from Mira Murati’s Story?
Mira Murati’s story is a testament to the power of innovation, leadership, and perseverance in the tech world.
Murati exhibited a strong aptitude for mathematics from an early age and her successful academic journey took her to Canada to study mechanical engineering at Pearson. This particular passion for problem-solving and innovation is what led her to Dartmouth College, setting a solid educational foundation that would become the core of her remarkable career.
Murati’s professional experience is marked by her roles at renowned companies like Tesla and LeapMotion. At these companies, she contributed significantly to important projects, showcasing her skills and propelling her professional journey to new heights. These experiences not only expanded her technical knowledge but also ignited her passion for artificial intelligence, driving her to explore new frontiers in the field.
Murati’s leadership has been instrumental in her success at OpenAI. At the company, she’s worked at the forefront of developing groundbreaking AI projects like ChatGPT and Dall-E. These innovations once again showed her ability to lead teams that achieve remarkable feats, and she has been a strong promoter of AI’s responsible, ethical use.
Ultimately, Murati’s story exemplifies how a strong educational background, combined with dedication and passion, can lead to incredible wealth and advancements in technology.