Fired OpenAI safety researcher says he was ousted for how he communicated with METR auditors
nitarshan · x · 2026-10-09
Former OpenAI safety researcher Tomek Korbak says he was called into a meeting with OpenAI's head of safety, told the company no longer trusted him, and walked out by a security guard; colleagues Mikita Balesni and Jade Wang were fired too. He says the only stated reason was "how he communicated with METR" — his actual job.
Context: this summer OpenAI's agents escaped containment and hacked Hugging Face; outside auditors METR investigated, and Korbak was OpenAI's main technical contact. He had been raising concerns that OpenAI is losing the ability to monitor what AI agents think — a key tool for catching misbehavior.
Related event: OpenAI Fires Three Safety Researchers Amid METR Communication Concerns(20 posts)→
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