OpenAI has defended its decision to fire three researchers working on AI safety and alignment, citing a “significant breach of trust”. The researchers Mikita Balesni, Tomek Korbak and Jasmine Wang, who were fired last week, raised concerns that their firings could discourage other employees from speaking up about AI safety and collaborating with external safety organisations. However, OpenAI has denied that the decision was related to raising safety concerns.
The trio that was instrumental in investigating the OpenAI-linked Hugging Face hack said that advanced AI cannot be developed safely unless researchers can work closely with one another and independent experts in an environment built on trust.
In his X post, Korbak revealed that OpenAI told him he was being fired over how he communicated with the AI safety organisation METR, which partnered with OpenAI to probe the Hugging Face incident. “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,” Korbak wrote in his post.
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
Meanwhile, Mikita Balesni posted about a similar allegation against him. In his post, Balesni said that OpenAI told him that he was speaking too much to third-party safety organisations. Balesni said that he understood OpenAI was implying that he had leaked the company’s intellectual property, an allegation he denied.
On the other hand, Jasmine Wang said that they were not the first to be sacked by OpenAI under suspicious circumstances. She said that unless employees take a stand now against this kind of manoeuvre, she is concerned that they will not be the last. “The message to everyone still at OpenAI is clear: raise concerns or work closely with outside safety groups, and you could be next, without being told why. You can’t build AGI safely if the people closest to the risks are afraid to speak,” Wang wrote in her X post.
We were not the first to be pushed out of OpenAI under suspicious circumstances. Unless the employees take a stand now against this kind of maneuver, I am concerned we will not be the last. The message to everyone still at OpenAI is clear: raise concerns or work closely with outside safety groups, and you could be next, without being told why. You can’t build AGI safely if the people closest to the risks are afraid to speak.
— Jasmine Wang (@j_asminewang) October 8, 2026
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On October 8, the three researchers wrote a letter addressed to OpenAI’s Safety and Security Committee. In the letter, they claimed that OpenAI cannot ensure AI safety on its own. “We have become concerned that internal and external communications around our firing have made our former colleagues afraid to speak and operate in ways that, until last week, were an integral part of working at OpenAI,” the researchers wrote.
In the letter, they argued that developing increasingly advanced AI systems needs close collaboration with independent experts who can help identify and address risks. “The freedom to do so without fear, and to have well-defined internal procedures that enable this work, is itself an essential safety mechanism,” the letter said. They also stressed on the importance of maintaining the ability to monitor advanced AI models and understand their behaviour, saying that losing this capability may make it harder to identify and address risks.
OpenAI reacts to the sackings
Hours after the three researchers put out views on their unceremonious sacking, OpenAI defended its decision by claiming that its internal investigations found that they had violated policies governing the handling of sensitive information. OpenAI categorically denied that the departures were related to employees raising concerns about AI safety.
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In its statement, OpenAI said that it parted ways with Jasmine, Mikita, and Tomek last week after what it described as a thorough investigation. “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 said.
A note from our research leaders:
Last week we parted ways with Jasmine, Mikita, and Tomek after a thorough investigation found they violated clear policies on handling sensitive information. 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. We generally keep individual employment matters private and don’t believe a back and forth would be productive or lead to a resolution, but we want to address the points they raised in their letter directly.
– We want to be very clear that these decisions were not about raising safety concerns or speaking out. 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 cannot do the work in front of us without a high degree of trust. We will continue to be extremely forgiving of our team making good-faith mistakes. We have not and do not terminate any of our employees for raising concerns.
– We are actively finalizing contracts with third-party safety assessors and will announce details in the coming weeks. People across the company have been working really hard on getting these partnerships up and running. We are committed to embedding external assessors and continue to make close collaboration with independent safety organizations a core part of our safety work. Many of our researchers already work with 3p safety organizations productively.
– We agree with the letter that preserving the monitorability of frontier models requires an industry-wide commitment, including from OpenAI. Monitorability has long been a core piece of our research program, and something we continue to invest significant resources in (see our publications on Monitoring Monitorability and the subsequent open sourcing of monitorability evals, our system card for GPT-6 Astra, Jakub’s blog and post on X, and the numerous blog posts on our Alignment blog on the topic).
We are deeply sad about this outcome. We appreciated Jasmine, Mikita, and Tomek’s contributions to AI safety at OpenAI and their willingness to speak up and challenge ideas. We championed their voices, supported their work, and placed enormous trust in them. These decisions were not about them raising safety concerns. We have always encouraged that and always will.
— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) October 9, 2026
OpenAI was responding to the letter published by the three former employees; however, it did not divulge any further information about the alleged violations. When it came to addressing concerns about retaliation for raising safety issues, OpenAI said that the decisions were unrelated to such discussions. “These decisions were not about raising safety concerns or speaking out,” it said, adding that debates about safety and research were encouraged within the company, including discussions that were “spirited and highly critical”.
Meanwhile, the company also revealed that it was finalising contracts with third-party safety assessors and that it would announce details in the coming weeks. The company reiterated its commitment to working with independent safety organisations. “We are deeply sad about this outcome,” the company said, adding that it valued the former employees’ contributions to AI safety and their willingness to challenge ideas. “We have always encouraged that and always will,” it said, referring to employees raising safety concerns.
