I genuinely can't believe the board didn't see this coming. I think they could have won in the court of public opinion if their press release said they loved Sam but felt like his skills and ambitions diverged from their mission. But instead, they tried to skewer him, and it backfired completely.
I hope Sam comes back. He'll make a lot more money if he doesn't, but I trust Sam a lot more than whomever they ultimately replace him with. I just hope that if he does come back, he doesn't use it as a chance to consolidate power – he's said in the past it's a good thing the board can fire him, and I hope he finds better board members rather than eschewing a board altogether.
EDIT: Yup, Satya is involved https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1726025717077688662
That being said, here's my strongman argument: Sam is scared of the ramifications of AI, especially financially. He's experimenting with a lot of things, such as Basic Income (https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/basic-income), rethinking capitalism (https://moores.samaltman.com/) and Worldcoin.
He's also likely worried about what happens if you can't tell who is human and who isn't. We will certainly need a system at some point for verifying humanity.
Worldcoin doesn't store iris information; it just stores a hash for verification. It's an attempt to make sure everyone gets one, and to keep things fair and more evenly distributed.
(Will it work? I don't think so. But to call it an eyeball identity scam and dismiss Sam out of hand is wrong)