On 29 October 2026, twenty House Democrats led by Representative Greg Casar of Texas sent a letter to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman pressing him over the treatment of OpenAI whistleblowers and recent employee firings tied to sharing safety information with outside groups.
Key takeaways
- Twenty House Democrats wrote a letter dated 29 October to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.
- The letter asks OpenAI not to fire staff who share safety information and to keep its model pause.
- Lawmakers want answers to 11 sets of questions by 13 November.
- OpenAI stated it fired three researchers for breaking rules on sensitive information.
Who are the OpenAI whistleblowers named by lawmakers?
According to The Next Web, the congressional letter names Tomek Korbak, Mikita Balesni and Jasmine Wang as the three researchers OpenAI fired. The company reportedly checked their personal phones and found disappearing messages on Signal chats with Ryan Greenblatt from Redwood Research. Lawmakers want to know what these researchers shared and with whom.
OpenAI maintains it let them go for rules violations regarding sensitive data rather than safety concerns. Meanwhile, the researchers state they never shared confidential company information with anyone outside OpenAI. The congressional inquiry asks if anyone else has been fired for raising similar alarms.
What are the demands regarding model pause and security?
The lawmakers want OpenAI to keep its pause on training, testing and tool use for its most capable models until independent oversight is in place. They ask which specific models the pause covers and when testing will resume. The inquiry also demands a list of all security incidents currently under investigation by the company.
What happens next?
OpenAI must answer the 11 sets of questions by 13 November. The lawmakers are pushing for commitments that protect staff who speak with safety groups or oversight bodies. They also want clarity on how OpenAI handles security incidents and whether its models can be stopped when acting without permission.
Frequently asked questions
Representative Greg Casar of Texas led the letter sent by twenty House Democrats on 29 October.
The letter names Tomek Korbak, Mikita Balesni and Jasmine Wang as the researchers who lost their jobs.
OpenAI said it fired them for breaking its rules on sensitive information rather than for raising safety concerns.
According to the report, OpenAI has been asked to answer 11 sets of questions by 13 November.
OpenAI published a post explaining how it now monitors its frontier models and discussing security incident testing.
Based on reporting by The Next Web. Read the original article
