> if any former employee who signed one of those old agreements is worried about it, they can contact me and we'll fix that too. very sorry about this.
Either way, I can imagine a subtext of "step forward and get a target on your back."
don't contact OpenAI legal, which leaves an unsavory paper trail
contact me directly, so we can talk privately on the phone and I can give you a little $$$ to shut you up
However the fact that the corporate leadership could even make those threats to not-yet-departed employees indicates that something is already broken or missing in the legal relationship with current ones.
A simple example might for the company to clearly state in their handbook--for all current employees--that vested shares cannot be clawed back.
[1] The keywords are promissory estoppel. I'm not a lawyer but this looks at least like a borderline case worth worrying about.