It seems more likely Illya is a less wrong type of person that saw Sam as a threat to his vision. He doesn't like the commercialization aspect where as Sam would prefer OpenAI didn't go broke.
Half of the current 4-member board is also involved with GovAI, which is dedicated to AI safety research and advocating regulation. Aren't they more likely to think that OpenAI has been extremely reckless in publicly releasing models and research like they have?