2) generally, even when a board fires a CEO, they rarely "call them out" or say what they did wrong. they must have some extremely strong evidence against him.
i think it could be any of the following: - something personal, i.e. the controversy w/his sister - a financial issue: chatgpt stopped signups a couple of days ago - a safetyist coup: maybe the board thought he was moving to fast - a microsoft coup: microsoft used its power to knock out what they perceived to be their biggest threat
Eric Schmidt would likely know about it, and defend Sam. Sam would likely think the use is legitimate and not be ashamed of it (like he might with your suggestions).