‘About principle, not people’, OpenAI's robotics head quits after company's Pentagon deal — Who is Caitlin Kalinowski?

Caitlin Kalinowski, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI's robotics team has resigned from the position. In a post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), she said the decision was directly tied to the company's new deal with the Department of War (DoW).

“I resigned from OpenAI. I care deeply about the Robotics team and the work we built together. This wasn’t an easy call,” Kalinowski wrote on X.

Addressing the reasons, he added: “AI has an important role in national security. But surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got. This was about principle, not people.”

Kalinowski ended the post stating that he has “deep respect” for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his team, adding, “I’m proud of what we built together.”

Who is Caitlin Kalinowski? OpenAI's former robotics chief

According to a Bloomberg report, Kalinowski joined OpenAI in November 2024 as a member of the company’s technical staff in robotics. At time of writing this, his LinkedIn no longer reflected his position at OpenAI.

It did however show his previous experience as Head of Meta Platforms' augmented reality (AR) glasses from March 2022 to June 2024; and head of virtual reality (VR) hardware for Oculus VR from February 2013 to March 2022.

He was also a product design engineer for Apple from April 2007 to January 2013, with his LinkedIn page listing the 2012 MacBook Pro, 2010 MacBook Airs, and 2007 and 2008 MacBooks among his credits.

More public perception trouble ahead for Sam Altman, OpenAI?

Notably, Kalinowski's departure could result in more blowback against OpenAI and Altman, who has in previous statements claimed that the Pentagon deal is “consistent with applicable laws” and will not be “intentionally used for domestic surveillance of US persons and nationals”.

A significant number of users cancelled their OpenAI and ChatGPT subscriptions to move to other alternatives, after Altman announced the company had reached an agreement with the Pentagon to deploy its models in classified networks. Anthropic’s main app surged to the top of Apple’s download charts in a show of support for the company during its clash with the Pentagon.

OpenAI confirmed the departure to Bloomberg and said that the DoW deal “creates a workable path for responsible national security uses of AI while making clear our red lines, no domestic surveillance and no autonomous weapons.”

“We recognize that people have strong views about these issues and we will continue to engage in discussion with employees, government, civil society and communities around the world,” the emailed statement added.

Notably, Altman in a post last week acknowledged the company's rush to sign a deal with the Pentagon “just looked opportunistic and sloppy”. This was widely viewed as damage control.

He claimed OpenAI has been working with the Pentagon to “make some additions in our agreement to make our principles very clear”. Altman added that he hoped the DoW offers Anthropic “the same terms we’ve agreed to”.

The department has designated Anthropic PBC as a ‘Supply Chain Risk’ (SCR), a move that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that the company will challenge in court. “We do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court. The statute applied (10 USC 3252) is narrow and exists to protect the government rather than to punish a supplier,” he added.