Uber president Jill Hazelbaker to lead OpenAI corporate affairs

OpenAI credits her with helping shape Uber’s reputation and navigate regulatory and reputational challenges during its global expansion. In the report on her departure, Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi described her as a trusted adviser and a driving force behind important strategic moments since he joined in 2017. Those endorsements explain how her incoming employer and outgoing chief executive view her record; they are not independent measures of her impact.

Before Uber, Hazelbaker led communications and public policy at Snap. At Google, she led global corporate communications, communications across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and government relations in Europe. Her campaign experience includes serving as national communications director and chief spokesperson for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and press secretary during Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 mayoral re-election campaign.

Company-reported reach across OpenAI’s products. OpenAI provides no measurement method for either figure. Graphic: Magica; source: OpenAI. Source: OpenAI audience and business context.

Public trust meets a commercial business

The audience is substantial. In a September 8, 2026 business update, OpenAI said its products reached more than one billion weekly active users and 2.5 million businesses. These are company-reported figures across its products, not a ChatGPT-only count; the update does not give a measurement method for either figure.

That update also describes the business interests behind wider adoption. OpenAI says advertising supports free access, while subscriptions and usage-based offerings allow spending to grow as customers find more value. It says revenue from adoption funds further research and infrastructure. Public engagement therefore sits alongside a commercial strategy that depends on people and organizations continuing to use its products.

OpenAI’s institutional history adds another obligation to explain. Founded as a nonprofit in 2015, it established a for-profit business in 2019. In its October 28, 2025 restructuring announcement, OpenAI said the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation retained control of the commercial business, now called OpenAI Group PBC, a public benefit corporation.

Both share a stated mission to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits humanity. The Foundation also owns equity in the business: OpenAI’s stated rationale is that commercial success increases the value of that stake and the resources available for philanthropy. Its public mission and financial incentives are linked through ownership as well as corporate messaging.

The company said the restructuring followed nearly a year of discussions with the California and Delaware attorneys general, and that it made changes as a result. Hazelbaker is arriving at an organization whose governance, as well as its products, has required explanation to public institutions.

What would demonstrate influence beyond messaging?

The appointment announcement gives no start date or measurable goals for the trust-building effort. It says Hazelbaker will work closely with OpenAI’s leaders, but leaves the practical boundaries of that relationship unspecified.

The next evidence to watch is how her communications and community partnerships connect to the company’s decisions: whether public engagement changes those decisions, and what OpenAI discloses about the results. Her record explains the choice of executive. The appointment alone cannot establish how much authority she will have to turn that experience into public trust.