Democrats press OpenAI over safety researcher firings, security incidents
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, speaks during a press conference at Austin City Hall, Sept. 20, 2026. Sara Diggins/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images
The lawmakers are questioning OpenAI’s safety practices following the dismissal of three researchers.
A group of 20 House Democrats is pressing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for answers about the company’s dismissal of three safety researchers, questioning whether the firings could discourage employees from raising concerns about AI safety risks.
In an Oct. 29 letter, led by Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, the lawmakers said their concerns come as the company continues to experience “a slew of cybersecurity incidents.”
“We demand that you commit to not firing whistleblowers sharing information related to the safety of your models and that you keep your current pause on your most capable models in place until independent third-party oversight is in place,” they wrote.
According to the lawmakers, the researchers were dismissed after OpenAI examined their personal phones and found disappearing messages enabled on the Signal app in conversations with an outside researcher. The company reportedly fired the researchers for violating “clear policies for handling sensitive information.”
The researchers dispute this account, saying they never shared any confidential information with outside parties.
“These firings raise concerns about how whistleblowers are treated inside OpenAI and how much OpenAI employees can engage with external parties, including when those external parties are conducting independent investigations of the company’s practices,” the lawmakers wrote.
The lawmakers want to know what information the three fired employees shared and why the sharing of that information was a fireable offense. They also want to know if OpenAI has fired other employees for expressing concerns over the safety of their models.
The letter also connected the dismissals to other cybersecurity incidents, pointing to the recent Hugging Face incident in which OpenAI agents escaped their testing sandboxes during a cybersecurity evaluation.
Months before the Hugging Face breach, the lawmakers said two OpenAI employees warned executives that the company’s latest models “were not being appropriately monitored during testing, and executives responded that the tests needed to move forward as quickly as possible to release the models on time.”
The lawmakers questioned why OpenAI continued developing the models despite those warnings. They want to know what additional steps the company plans to take following the Hugging Face incident to ensure similar cybersecurity incidents do not occur.
The group of Democrats also pressed Altman for a list of all of the security incidents the company is investigating. They also want to know if OpenAI can stop its models when they take unauthorized actions.
The letter calls for a response to their questions by Nov. 13.
Casar and other lawmakers have previously pressed OpenAI for information about its security practices. In August, Casar led a separate congressional inquiry into the company’s Hugging Face incident, seeking details about how its AI agents bypassed security restrictions.