2 points
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The reason that makes the most sense in one of the articles I’ve read is that they fired him after he tried to push out one of the board members.
Replacing that board member with an ally would have cemented control over the board for a time. They might not have felt his was being honest in his motives for the ousting, so it was basically fire now, or lose the option to fire him in the future.
Edit: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/technology/openai-altman-board-fight.html