Turning it into an emergency and surprise coup with innuendo of wrongdoing looks to have been a huge mistake, and may result in total loss of control where a more measured course correction could have succeeded.
To push back on this a bit. If two yet unknown people, "an Altman" and "an Ilya", both applied to YC to start a company that builds and sells AI models, guess who would get funded. Not the guy who can't build AI models.
I find it bizarre that the guy who can build is suddenly the villain-nerd who can't be trusted, and the salesman is the hero, in this community.