Three Fired OpenAI Safety Researchers Publish Open Letter, Say They Were Dismissed for Putting Safety First

PANews reported on October 9 that former OpenAI safety researcher Mikita Balesni posted on X that he, along with Tomek Korbak and Jasmine Wang, were fired by OpenAI last week. The three have written to company leadership, arguing they were dismissed for putting safety above OpenAI's short-term corporate interests. The three denied leaking company secrets and called on OpenAI to honor its commitment to third-party safety audits and to maintain the monitorability of frontier models. OpenAI previously said an internal investigation found the three had handled sensitive information outside established processes.