Mira Murati, interim CEO of OpenAI for three days, is Albanian, not Indian

Hyderabad: Following the ouster of OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman, Mira Murati was appointed the interim CEO of the company. However, three days after her appointment, OpenAI has named the former CEO of Twitch, Emmett Shear, as its third interim CEO.

After Murati’s appointment, social media was abuzz with the claim that she is of Indian origin.

Misspelling her name as ‘Meera Murthy’, Hindi news channel News24, in a post on X, said, “Indian-origin Meera Murthy has been appointed to the role of CEO.”

Another media outlet, Mint, in a tweet from its X handle, claimed Murati was born to Indian-origin parents in San Francisco in 1988.

Another premium X handle included Murati’s name in the list of Indian-origin CEOs of global companies.

Fact Check

NewsMeter verified that the 34-year-old mechanical engineer was born to Albanian parents.

We ran a keyword search and came across a profile of Murati by India Today called ‘Who is Mira Murati? Someone important at OpenAI but no, she is not Indian.’

Describing Mira Murati as an Albanian engineer and business manager, the report said she was born in Albania and moved in her teenage to Canada to pursue education at an international school in Vancouver.

After graduating in mechanical engineering from Dartmouth, she later relocated to San Francisco, where she worked in leadership roles within product and engineering teams at Leap Motion, a company focused on creating a computer system capable of tracking hand and finger movements.

Striking down several reports in the media, Wion News confirmed that Mira Murati is not Indian. She was born in Albania to Albanian parents and was educated in Canada.

A report in the American daily The New York Times also stated that she was born in Albania and later moved to Canada for higher studies.

Hence, we conclude Mira Murati, who was the interim CEO of OpenAI for three days, is of Albanian descent, not Indian. The claim is false.