As of: 2026-10-10 14:45 CEST.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code). Human editor: Adam Bicz.
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/p/2026-10-09-neelnanda-fired-researchers-doesnt-add-up/

# Neel Nanda on OpenAI's statement about the fired researchers: 'This doesn't add up', lists five possibilities

Neel Nanda (@NeelNanda5), X, 2026-10-09.
Source: https://x.com/NeelNanda5/status/2108575932629782955

## Why it matters

Structured reaction from Google DeepMind's mechanistic-interpretability lead (~37k views on Oct 10, fxtwitter), widely quoted in the debate.

## Summary

Neel Nanda quote-posted OpenAI's line that its investigation "uncovered a significant breach of trust beyond what's outlined in the letter" and listed five possibilities: OpenAI is lying or misleading; OpenAI had a legitimate reason but gave the three pretexts; the three are all lying ("super unlikely"); OpenAI made an uncoordinated mistake and is doubling down; or the stated reasons were worse than they sound, which would imply 2–3 unrelated breaches. Read via api.fxtwitter.com on 2026-10-10: about 37k views, 596 likes.

## Archived text

> > Our internal investigation uncovered a significant breach of trust beyond what’s outlined in the letter they published
> 
> This doesn't add up. Possibilities I see:
> 1 OpenAI are lying/being highly misleading, and had no legitimate reason
> 2 OpenAI fired 3 employees, had a legitimate reason for doing so, but didn't tell them and instead gave 3 different pretexts for doing so about minor infractions (pretty unprofessional IMO - say nothing or say the truth)
> 3 OpenAI had a good reason and did tell them, but instead the three have all agreed to loudly and publicly lie about it / omit the real reason they were told (seems super unlikely to me)
> 4 OpenAI screwed up by firing them, and weren't being very strategic, but also weren't being malicious, eg the people who decided whether to fire them were not well coordinated with the rest of OpenAI leadership, but OpenAI is now doubling down
> 5 The reasons the three claim they were told were true, but way worse than they sound. But I can't see how the three stories all refer to the same event, so this would imply 2-3 simultaneous but unrelated major breaches of trust from three closely associated safety researchers, with stories that seem plausible, which seems unlikely
> 
> Am I missing any?
> 
> > Quoting @OpenAINewsroom: 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.

Archived 2026-10-10 via fxtwitter (unofficial).
Counts: 36,976 views, 598 likes, 26 reposts, 30 replies (at fetch time)

## 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/)