It isn't a coup. A coup is when power is taken and taken by force, not when your constituents decide you no longer represent their interests well. That's like describing voting out a politician as a coup. Calling it a coup falsely implies that OpenAI in some sense belongs to Sam Altman. If anything is a coup, it's the idea that a founder can incorporate a company and sell parts of it off, and nevertheless still own i…
No, you're confusing business with politics. You're right that a literal coup d'état is the forced takeover of a state with the backing of its own military. But in the business and wider world, a coup (without the d'état part) is, by analogy, any takeover of power that is secretly planned and executed as a surprise. (We can similarly talk about a company "declaring war" which means to compete by mobilizing all resour…
Executives do not have any right to their position. They are an officer, i.e., an agent of the stakeholders. The idea that the executive is the holder of the power and it's a "coup" if they aren't allowed to remain is disgustingly reminiscent of Trumpian stop-the-steal rhetoric.