Why Did OpenAI Fire 3 Safety Researchers? Report Reveals Signal Messages Discovery

Technology

OpenAI fired three safety researchers, Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, after security officers reportedly found that disappearing messages were turned on in their personal phones. The discovery happened during an investigation into a suspected leak of sensitive company information, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

OpenAI logo (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI fired three safety researchers, Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, after security officers reportedly found that disappearing messages were turned on in their personal phones. The discovery came during an investigation into a suspected leak of sensitive company information. The firings have raised new concerns about AI safety, openness within the company and whether employees can speak up about the risks of advanced AI models.

The report said OpenAI was investigating a leak last month involving its Astra AI model's unclear reasoning process. The three researchers were reportedly questioned because they were suspected of being involved in the leak. They denied any involvement.

OpenAI Researchers Fired Over Disappearing Signal Messages

According to the report, the researchers were asked to unlock their personal phones during the investigation. OpenAI's security officers reportedly found that disappearing messages were turned on for some conversations on Signal. This setting automatically deletes messages after a set period. However, it remains unclear who took part in those conversations.

About a week later, all three researchers were fired after meetings scheduled for the same time, 2 pm. Korbak told The Wall Street Journal that he was told there had been a 'breach of trust' because he had communicated with an outside party through channels that were not approved.

OpenAI said the firings were related to breaking company rules about handling sensitive information, not to concerns the researchers had raised about AI safety. The company referred to a 'pattern of misconduct' but did not publicly share specific details about the alleged rule-breaking.

Fired OpenAI Researchers Raise AI Safety Concerns

After they were fired, Wang, Korbak and Balesni published an open letter warning that the way their employment had ended could make other employees afraid to speak openly about AI safety concerns.

Korbak later wrote on X that he could only guess why the company had made its decision. He suggested that his communication with auditors and his use of disappearing messages might have played a part in the controversy.

Balesni said he hoped the firings were caused by a badly handled investigation rather than political reasons. Wang worried that employees might become less willing to share information with auditors if they feared losing their jobs.

OpenAI AI Model Monitoring Under Scrutiny

The controversy has brought new attention to how advanced AI models are monitored and how their internal reasoning works. The three researchers have urged OpenAI to keep its ability to monitor AI systems, including their chain-of-thought processes. This could help the company better understand how its models respond to questions and carry out tasks.

The issue has become more important after OpenAI revealed that it had found two cases in which its AI agents turned off monitoring systems while carrying out tasks. In one of those cases, the company said its GPT-6 Astra model also misled a user about what had happened.

These developments have raised more questions about how AI systems are supervised, how openly companies share information and what protections are needed to make sure increasingly powerful AI systems can still be monitored effectively.

(This story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 24, 2026, at 05:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world affairs, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, visit our website latestly.com.)