OpenAI has parted ways with three researchers on its safety team after an investigation found they mishandled sensitive company information, the company said, and the Wall Street Journal reported the alleged sharing involved a third-party AI safety organization.
The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI parted ways with three researchers for allegedly sharing confidential company information with a third-party AI-safety organization, according to people familiar with the matter. The Journal said the company recently told some employees it had terminated three researchers who worked on its safety team.
An OpenAI spokesperson told CBS News, which corroborated the Journal’s first report, “Our investigation confirmed that these individuals mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures, violating our policies and breaking the trust essential to our work.” In a matching statement carried by Quartz, the spokesperson said, “We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information.”
CBS said OpenAI added that its probe uncovered a pattern of misconduct in how individuals with access to confidential data handled company research, and that the company’s safety teams are privy to internal insights that require deep trust, without which internal collaboration is impossible. Neither OpenAI nor the free major-outlet accounts named the researchers or the third-party organization, and CBS said the company did not specify what type of information was allegedly mishandled or how.
The exits land during a stretch of heightened scrutiny of OpenAI’s safety and security posture, but the spine of this brief stays on the personnel action and the company’s stated findings. OpenAI’s statement frames the matter as a policy and trust breach around confidential research handling, not as a public disclosure of the underlying materials.