This is Altman's playbook. He did a similar ousting at Reddit. This was planned all along to overturn the board. Ilya was in on it.
I'm not normally a conspiracy theorist. But fool me ... you can't be fooled again. As they say in Tennessee
Note that the response is Altman's, and he seems to support it.
As additional context, Paul Graham has said a number of times that Altman is one of the most power-hungry and successful people he know (as praise). Paul Graham, who's met hundreds if not thousands of experienced leaders in tech, says this.