Sam Altman Addresses “Potential Undoing of Actions” in OpenAI NDA

• OpenAI’s exit deals included non-disparagement clauses that threatened equity, Vox reported.
• Sam Altman said on X that the company had never implemented it and that he was not aware of the provision.
• The clause will be removed from future contracts, the OpenAI CEO said.

OpenAI employees who left the company without signing a non-disparagement agreement could have lost their equity if they did not comply – but the policy was never used, the CEO said Saturday Sam Altman.

Vox News first reported on the terms of the exit deal following the high-profile departures of two AI security researchers from the company: Jan Leike, co-head of Superalignment, and Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and former chief scientist.

Sutskever and Leike left on Tuesday. Although he did not speak about the reasons for his sudden departure, Business Insider previously reported that OpenAI board member Sutskever was in limbo after his attempt to oust Altman from his post. CEO.

Leike remained silent until Friday morning, when he said he left because “OpenAI’s culture and security processes took a backseat to shiny products.”

Vox reported Friday that their silence could have been due to a non-disparagement agreement prohibiting former employees from criticizing the company – and even acknowledging the existence of the NDA.

On Saturday, Altman confirmed the deal was real, but said the company had never “recovered the equity acquired by anyone.” He also said that in the future the company will no longer include this clause on exit documents.

“This is my fault and one of the few times I’ve been truly embarrassed to lead openai; I didn’t know this was happening and I should have,” Altman wrote on X.

BI previously reported that OpenAI employee compensation included a fixed base salary of $300,000 as well as an annual grant of approximately $500,000 in PPUs, or profit sharing units, a form of stock compensation .

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.