> Sam Altman decided

What is more plausible is a "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" [1] situation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur...

Especially given his whole cult of personality schtick

I know a lot of people hate Altman with a passion, but I haven't encountered that depth of feeling going in the other direction.

The strongest advocation I have seen for him has be to say that he is an extremely persuasive and talented organiser with vision. The only thing that distinguishes that from any other superlative laden blurb you could find about just about any tech CEO is the persuasive attribute.

Surely that’s not the only alternative? I can think of countless others.

Personally I do not want to start any conspiracies myself by listing them, but this is hardly a binary choice

I can't tell. Are you saying it's not?

have you seen the lengths to which Sama goes to silence ex-employees using legal means like cancelling vested equity and super-aggressive NDAs. there have been multiple articles written on that. its not far fetched to imagine & definitely not conspiratorial if you factor in the fact that now openAI has $40B worth of saudi investments. that regime is known to some of most vicious atrocities including that reporter.

this would be sending a clear message to future whistleblowers.

it wasnt sam. it was the federal government who has many state assets installed in openAI. would this be the first time a global power murdered someone for trying to blow the whistle?