SpaceX sales lead Graham Seamans heads to OpenAI
What's the story
OpenAI has hired Graham Seamans, a former SpaceX sales lead, to head sales for its cybersecurity business. The move comes as part of the latest in a string of hires from Elon Musk's artificial intelligence venture. Seamans had led the sales team at xAI since August 2025 and was part of the firm's renewed push to sell the Grok chatbot to Wall Street.
Career history
Seamans brings extensive experience to OpenAI
Before his stint at xAI, Seamans spent nearly eight years at MongoDB as per his LinkedIn profile.
His wealth of experience is expected to be a major asset for OpenAI as it seeks to strengthen its cybersecurity business.
The company has also hired other employees from SpaceX's AI compute team, including Uday Ruddarraju and Brent Mayo.
Growth plan
OpenAI's strategy to boost sales and create new revenue streams
Since September, OpenAI has also hired Brian McCarthy and Ismail Elmas in Europe.
Both were previously associated with coding automation start-up Cursor, which SpaceX acquired for $60 billion in August.
The recent hires are part of OpenAI's strategy to expand its commercial footprint by boosting sales from enterprise customers, and creating new revenue streams such as advertising ahead of a potential public listing.
Lawsuit details
Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and the birth of xAI
Musk lost a lawsuit against OpenAI, which he co-founded, claiming that the AI lab betrayed its public mission by transitioning to a for-profit model. In response, he launched a rival AI developer, xAI, which was later merged with SpaceX.