I suspect his popularity is mostly about employees who want to maintain the value of their equity: https://nitter.net/JacquesThibs/status/1727134087176204410#m

Wild guess: If the board stands its ground, appoints a reasonable new CEO, and employees understand that OpenAI will continue to be a hot startup, most of them will stay with the company due to their equity

Except, the facts behind Sam's firing will inevitably come out, and it won't be possible to brush it under the carpet. I think they hoped the facts wouldn't come out, and they could just give a hand-wavey explanation, but that's clearly not going to happen. It seems they have well and truly shot themselves in the feet, and they will likely have to be replaced now.

If I'm correct then the board is fine with getting replaced, they just don't want Sam to have total control. Many of the candidates for independent director are friendly with Sam and will happily give him the keys to the kingdom. It's probably extremely difficult to find qualified independent board members who don't have ties to Sam.

Idk, seems like a pretty easy sell to me:

"Sam was trying to censor legitimate concerns the board had with regards to the safety of the technology and actively tried to undermine the board and replace it with his own puppets."

If that is indeed true they did a mistake by saying something vague imo.

I suspect the board prioritized legal exposure first and foremost. They made the mistake of not hiring a legal or PR firm to handle the dismissal.

If they prioritized legal exposure, they would not have made disparaging remarks in their initial press release.

Vague disparaging remarks, fine. Specific allegations, not so much.