This is also consistent with some number of OpenAI operators wanting Altman removed, and then discovering that the company's long-term financial outlook, and their accrued compensation in particular, was highly contingent on him staying. It's pretty normal for people to believe that they could, if all else was equal, have a better or more healthy management culture. But people rarely act on that belief precisely because earnestly pursuing it can end up threatening everyone's future well-being.

It's also consistent with OpenAI's board comprehensively botching their response to those concerns, even if had been clear that over the medium term Altman needed to be managed out. That's why there's a term for this ("managed out").

Instead, the OpenAI board created news cycle after news cycle of palace intrigue by seeming obliviousness to how their actions would be read.