Overview

• Liberatore starts Tuesday as business finance officer, reporting to CFO Sarah Friar and working with Greg Brockman's team on compute contracts and capital.
• He departed xAI in July after roughly three months as its chief financial officer.
• During his brief tenure at xAI, he helped line up about $5 billion in debt and $5 billion in equity and approved data-center expansion near Memphis, Tennessee.
• The hire follows OpenAI's recent restructuring that leaves its nonprofit parent with oversight and an equity stake reportedly exceeding $100 billion, alongside growing long-term compute deals including a reported $300 billion agreement with Oracle.
• xAI has been in flux with high-level exits and large annotation layoffs, and Elon Musk's legal fight with OpenAI and Sam Altman is advancing toward a March 2026 federal trial in Oakland.