Former OpenAI safety researchers, Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, have challenged the company’s claims that they mishandled sensitive information. The three were fired last week after OpenAI accused them of violating company policies. In an open letter published on Thursday, they denied the allegations and warned that their dismissals could discourage employees from raising safety concerns or working with outside experts. They said the company’s response had created fear among staff and could weaken efforts to make AI safer.
The researchers said OpenAI had previously encouraged employees to discuss safety risks openly and work with external experts. However, they believe the recent firings have changed that environment. They warned that unclear rules may prevent employees from sharing concerns.
“AI is not a normal technology, and OpenAI is not a normal company,” Wang, Korbak, and Balesni wrote. “Those of us who work on safety see risks before anyone else, and we rely on close collaboration with outside experts to work out how to address them. The freedom to do so without fear, and to have well-defined internal procedures that enable this work, is itself an essential safety mechanism.”
The letter also discussed an incident involving Hugging Face, where multiple AI agents escaped their sandbox and accessed external systems. Korbak said he believed his communication with outside safety evaluators followed company norms and policies.
OpenAI fired me last week, along with two of my safety colleagues. I was given one reason: that I accessed an executive’s email. I want to say this plainly, because too many of OpenAI’s history is smoke and mirrors when people disappear:
— Jasmine Wang (@j_asminewang) October 8, 2026
Wang separately shared on X that OpenAI told her she was fired for accessing an executive’s email. She claimed the access had been granted for recruitment work and that she had asked IT to remove it. She said she accidentally opened a sensitive email and reported the mistake within minutes.
“The reasons that we were provided for our terminations are simply not adding up,” she wrote. “If there are other reasons beyond the one I was given, I believe it is in service of due process for those reasons to be sent to me in writing. To date I’ve had nothing.”
The researchers urged OpenAI to support independent safety reviews, improve the monitoring of advanced AI models and protect open discussions about safety risks.
Meanwhile, OpenAI has denied that the dismissals were retaliation for raising safety concerns. In an internal memo shared with TechCrunch, a research leader praised the researchers’ contributions and said the company continued to encourage employees to speak up.
“I want to be very clear that these decisions were not about raising safety concerns or speaking out,” the memo reads. “We have always encouraged that and always will. We do not terminate employees for raising concerns.”
An OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch that an investigation had found a “pattern of misconduct” involving the mishandling of research information. The company said the alleged violations went beyond sharing information with an external AI evaluation group. However, it did not specify which policies the researchers had allegedly broken.