OpenAI Parts Ways with Three Safety Researchers Over Sensitive-Information Policies
OpenAI confirmed on Oct. 1 that it had “parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information” after an investigation. The Wall Street Journal, via secondary coverage, reported the material went to a third-party AI safety organization and named Tomek Korbak, Jasmine Wang and Mikita Balesni; OpenAI did not confirm the names. Together with David Robinson’s resignation the same week, OpenAI has lost four safety-side staff in about seven days. What was shared, and with whom, is not established here.
OpenAI’s on-record statement is narrow. The WSJ’s naming and the “third-party organization” frame sit one layer out — and neither side has tested its case in public.
On October 1, 2026, an OpenAI spokesperson told Gizmodo: “We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information… Our investigation confirmed that these individuals mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures, violating our policies and breaking the trust essential to our work.”
The Wall Street Journal, as relayed by Gizmodo and The Decoder, reported that the material went to “a third-party AI safety organization” and later named the three as Tomek Korbak (safety) and Jasmine Wang and Mikita Balesni (alignment). OpenAI did not confirm the names when Gizmodo asked. This piece does not state what was shared or which organization received it — those facts are not established in the sources inspected here.
Context that is public
Korbak had said he was OpenAI’s technical contact for METR and Redwood Research during their inquiry into the Hugging Face agent breach. The WSJ, per The Decoder, does not draw a connection between that role and the firings. All three had posted publicly about AI risk in September.
The same week, David Robinson — who led launch safety reports and helped draft the Preparedness Framework — resigned and published an Atlantic essay criticizing iterative deployment. Counted together, that is four safety-side departures in about a week, during an FTC probe into consumer harm from AI products and ongoing scrutiny of rogue-agent incidents. OpenAI’s policy-violation case and the researchers’ side remain untested in public.
Limits
- WSJ original not inspected; names and “third-party organization” arrive via Gizmodo / The Decoder secondary coverage.
- OpenAI confirmed the policy-violation parting, not the names or the recipient.
- Do not infer a link between the METR/Redwood contact role and the firings — WSJ draws none.
- What was shared is unknown here.