Boards vote executives out for reasons which are good, bad and downright petty all the time, and it's never done as a public meeting with presentation of eviden

Boards vote executives out for reasons which are good, bad and downright petty all the time, and it's never done as a public meeting with presentation of evidence. Nor is it usual for outgoing execs' successors to immediately try to rehire them, the majority of a company's staff to demand a CEO's reinstatement... never mind one of the board members who voted to get rid of him u-turning and adding his own name to that statement. Microsoft being surprised and a bit pissed off would have been expected. Microsoft finding room for Sam isn't wildly surprising. Microsoft announcing that it will try to poach every single member of OpenAI staff unless the board does what they want is not the sort of consequence you'd predict. It was obvious this was going to get a bit more attention than the average CEO firing and they certainly screwed up the communication by providing just as much information with their initial statement to fuel speculation and then no further comment, but boards firing CEOs is normal and the entire company dying on the hill of trying to bring him back isn't.