You think they just acted on a whim? Why?
Why is everybody assuming that the board just flipped out and did something insane?
To me, the rational assumption is that the board - being composed of multiple people who seem fairly well-grounded, i.e. not terminally online twitter types - are acting rationally. That's supported by them acting professionally; releasing one single press release and then shutting the hell up, presumably on the advice of their lawyers.
Because they fired him on Friday due to unspecified "lack of trust" issues and now, 2 days later, the new interim CEO is reportedly in talks to hire him back?
Do you not see why this looks like they fired him on a whim?
Literally nobody unbiased is reporting this. This reporting is _all_ coming from 'their side.' You are inside the smoke and mirrors if you can't see that.
new interim CEO Emmett Shear is involved in mediating these negotiations, creating the frankly unprecedented situation where (1) the interim CEO who replaced (2) the interim CEO who replaced Sam and who (3) got replaced for trying to get Sam back is now (4) deeply involved in a new effort to get Sam back
Explain to me how this was a well thought out transition and not done on a whim? Even the new CEO who was put into place after the interim CEO is trying to get Altman back.