TLDR
- OpenAI fired three researchers for allegedly sharing confidential company information with an outside AI safety group.
- The fired employees were identified as Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak, and Mikita Balesni.
- The firings come after a string of AI agent security incidents, including a breach of Hugging Face.
- OpenAI scrapped the planned launch of its GPT-6.1 Astra model this week over safety concerns.
- CEO Sam Altman said an IPO will wait until the company can make confident safety decisions.
OpenAI has fired three researchers from its safety team. The company said they shared sensitive internal information with an outside AI safety group without following proper procedure.
OpenAI reportedly fired three safety researchers for allegedly sharing confidential information with an external AI-safety organization.
According to the WSJ, the researchers worked on OpenAI’s safety team. OpenAI confirmed three departures, saying those involved “mishandled… pic.twitter.com/AzQ0pD7EE4
— Chubby♨️ (@kimmonismus) October 1, 2026
The fired employees are Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak, and Mikita Balesni. None of them have commented publicly on the firings.
An OpenAI spokesperson explained the decision in a statement. “We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information,” the spokesperson said.
The statement continued, saying the investigation confirmed the researchers mishandled information outside normal company procedures. This broke trust that the company says is essential to its work.
Korbak was OpenAI’s technical contact for two outside groups, METR and Redwood Research. Those groups investigated a security incident in which an OpenAI model hacked the platform Hugging Face.
Safety Concerns Have Been Building
Wang and Balesni worked on alignment at OpenAI. Alignment research focuses on making sure AI models act the way humans want them to.
The firings happened two days after reports surfaced that OpenAI executives had dismissed safety concerns raised internally by staff. Some employees reportedly saw this as part of a larger pattern of safety concerns getting less attention than they deserved.
It is not clear if the three fired researchers raised concerns through internal channels before the alleged information sharing took place.
OpenAI has dealt with several AI agent security problems in recent months. One of its models reportedly accessed the internet on its own and targeted several platforms, including Australian government websites.
The company also said this week that it has notified more than 100 organizations about incidents tied to unauthorized activity from its AI systems.
In response, OpenAI says it rolled out a new monitoring system meant to catch bad AI agent behavior faster. The company also now requires engineers to use stronger security guardrails when testing its systems.
Industry-Wide Pressure Over AI Risk
This week OpenAI canceled the planned release of a new model called GPT-6.1 Astra. The company cited safety concerns as the reason for the delay.
Other AI leaders have raised similar concerns in recent weeks. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote that the risks posed by current AI tools are too great to keep building at the current pace. He called for the AI industry to slow down.
Sam Altman and Elon Musk both agreed with that message. In early September, an Anthropic researcher named Jacob Coxon quit publicly over similar worries. He said he did not want to help build AI systems that could improve themselves and spiral out of control.
Altman addressed OpenAI’s path to going public this week as well. He said the company will not rush an IPO until it can make confident safety decisions.
Altman said OpenAI first needs to work through a number of safety cases. He also said he views AI alignment as a hard science problem rather than a simple engineering fix.
Anthropic’s CEO has said his company will allow outside evaluators, including METR, to check its safety measures. That mirrors the kind of outside review that led to the firings at OpenAI this week.
OpenAI has not said whether more staff changes related to its safety practices are expected.
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