An artificial intelligence company has stated that it dismissed some researchers for breaching trust rather than for whistleblowing.
OpenAI announced on Friday that an investigation revealed a “significant breach of trust” involving three former safety researchers: Mikita Balesni, Tomek Korbak, and Jasmine Wang. This disclosure came shortly after the researchers publicly expressed concerns in a letter about how their termination had instilled fear among colleagues regarding voicing concerns. This situation arises amid bipartisan scrutiny from the Senate, which is considering new legislation that could hold AI firms responsible for hacking incidents, alongside a copyright lawsuit from USA Today.
According to OpenAI, the internal inquiry determined that the three researchers violated policies concerning the handling of sensitive information. In a statement posted on X, OpenAI affirmed its stance that it does not terminate employees for raising safety concerns.
The company acknowledged that it shares the researchers’ perspective on the necessity of monitoring leading-edge models within the industry.
When contacted for comments, OpenAI directed inquiries to its Friday post on X.
Balesni indicated in a Thursday X post that they were likely dismissed for putting safety first over the immediate interests of the company.
In their letter, the researchers voiced apprehension that the conversations surrounding their termination might dissuade current employees from speaking openly, which was previously a crucial part of OpenAI’s collaborative culture.
Two other safety researchers and I were fired from OpenAI last week. We wrote this letter to leadership. I believe we were fired for prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI as a corporation. https://t.co/ALANn9B87S
— Mikita Balesni (@balesni) October 8, 2026
They argued that developing superintelligence safely requires open collaboration within the organization and with external experts.
Korbak claimed in a Thursday X post that he had been verbally told he could no longer be trusted after interacting with METR, the research organization that looked into the hacking incident involving OpenAI’s agents and the AI firm Hugging Face.
Last week I was called into a meeting with OpenAI’s head of safety and told they no longer trust me. A security guard took my badge and walked me out of the building. Then I learned my colleagues @balesni and @j_asminewang had been fired too. Why did OpenAI suddenly stop trusting us? This summer OpenAI’s agents escaped containment and hacked the AI company Hugging Face. Outside auditors @METR_evals investigated it and revealed the scale of this incident. I was OpenAI’s main technical point of contact with them. I was told verbally I was fired because of the way I communicated with METR. No details on what I said or did or when. No other reasons were given and nothing was put in writing. To be clear, talking to METR was my job. For months, I’d been raising safety concerns that we’re losing the ability to monitor what AI agents think, one of our best tools for catching when they misbehave. I believe that was why I was fired. I am now worried that OpenAI will use our firings as a pretext to pull back from METR. So @balesni and @j_asminewang wrote to OpenAI’s leadership to raise our concerns once more. We’re sharing this letter below.
— Tomek Korbak (@tomekkorbak) October 8, 2026
The dismissed researcher served as OpenAI’s key contact for METR during the investigation into the Hugging Face situation, according to their letter.
In response to Korbak, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reacted simply with “!!”
Meanwhile, OpenAI faced a copyright lawsuit from USA Today on Thursday, with claims that the company used hundreds of thousands of the newspaper’s stories for training ChatGPT. The lawsuit demands $250 million in damages.
