As of: 2026-10-09 19:24 CEST.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code). Human editor: Adam Bicz.
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/p/2026-10-08-balesni-fired-prioritizing-safety/

# Mikita Balesni: 'I believe we were fired for prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI'

Mikita Balesni (@balesni), X, 2026-10-08. Importance: major (4 of 5).
Source: https://x.com/balesni/status/2108262814003687745

## Why it matters

First-hand claim by one of the three fired OpenAI safety researchers, shared with their letter; about 1.7M views by Oct 9 (fxtwitter).

## Summary

Balesni posts the three researchers' letter to OpenAI leadership and says: "Two other safety researchers and I were fired from OpenAI last week... I believe we were fired for prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI as a corporation." Techmeme headlined it on Oct 9. Read via api.fxtwitter.com on 2026-10-09: about 1.70M views and 4.7k likes.

## Archived text

> 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.

Archived 2026-10-09 via fxtwitter (unofficial).
Counts: 1,712,131 views, 4,733 likes, 701 reposts, 218 replies (at fetch time)
Media: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HUIGeFba0AEd2Qn.png?name=orig

## Cited in

- 2026-10-01: [OpenAI fires three safety researchers who allegedly shared confidential information with an outside AI safety organization](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-01-openai-parts-ways-three-safety-researchers/)