OpenAI publicly denies fired safety researchers were punished for raising safety concerns

#What happened

OpenAI broke its silence Friday on the dismissal of three safety researchers, posting on X that an internal investigation found they committed a "significant breach of trust" over mishandled sensitive information, and explicitly denying the firings were retaliation for raising AI safety concerns.

#What OpenAI said

OpenAI's statement, reported by Reuters via BusinessWorld on October 9, says: "Our internal investigation uncovered a significant breach of trust beyond what's outlined in the letter they published and we stand by the decision to not continue their employment." The company asserted the dismissals were "not over raising safety concerns or speaking out," adding: "Safety and research debates happen every day at OpenAI, often spirited and highly critical. We actively encourage these discussions and consider them essential to making the right decisions... We have not and do not terminate any of our employees for raising concerns."

#What the researchers claim

Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni published a letter saying they believed their work with outside safety groups (METR and Redwood Research) fell within their job mandates. Korbak said on X he was told he was fired for how he communicated with METR, the external group OpenAI partnered with to investigate the July Hugging Face incident; Balesni said he was told he was "speaking too much to third party safety organizations."

#Why it matters

OpenAI's own former safety staff allege they were pushed out for expressing the same safety concerns that prompted mass resignations and an Anthropic $2T IPO risk warning, and the company is now on the record denying a link. The letter asks OpenAI to preserve the ability to monitor AI chain-of-thought.

#Sources

• REPORT: https://bworldonline.com/technology/2026/10/09/785871/openai-says-it-has-fired-three-researchers-for-violating-sensitive-information-policy/
• REPORT: https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/08/tech/fired-open-ai-researchers-pushed-out?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_meta
• REPORT: https://runtimewire.com/article/openai-safety-researchers-firings-outside-collaboration

Verified October 9, 2026.