[barnabee]

Can you explain why it would be unethical, if the contracts with those investors do not explicitly state there will be exclusivity?

Investors buy shares (or similar), and maybe some other rights or benefits with money. They do this with a contract, like any other business deal. There is nothing unethical that I can see about any action vis-a-vis the investors as long as the contracts are honoured (and the action is not otherwise unethical).

Directors and board members do have certain (e.g. fiduciary) duties which my require conflicts of interest to be disclosed and approved, but in the case of Musk and (it seems) at least this particular Sam, investors and others to whom they have this duties can be quite willing to make such approvals.

P.S. for what it's worth, not all companies forbid other work or side projects (I know this because we don't, unless you're planning on simultaneously working for a direct competitor).

[bmitc]

To me, the situation is not necessarily about ethics, although ethics are important to me. It's about conflicts of interest. You cannot maintain no conflicts of interest if you stand to personally gain in one venture from another venture and by pitting them against another or propping one up on the other.

If I'm a government official, then it's a conflict of interest if I own a construction company and increase budget for specific constructions to give my company a boost. This obviously happens in our government today, but it doesn't not make it a major problem.

The other perspective is one of grifting. It's similar to con men, who just move from thing to thing gathering up chips at the table. These investors and so-called entrepreneurs are just like that. They are interested in upping their profile at all costs. Their investments and companies are just a means.

I have worked in jobs where I need to report stock holdings more than a certain amount. Imagine a scenario where a low-level worker could affect billion dollar companies' stock enough to benefit from by buying their products on the job. Such a scenario doesn't exist, but the conflicts of interest are still tracked. It is much easier for high profile executives to affect price movements, amd that's why it's more, not less, important for high-level employees.

[barnabee]

I agree with that. Government officials and politicians should have effectively no conflicts of interest because they have no real way to seek valid approval from the electorate for them.

For companies, if you have investors, employees, and (implicitly, because they continue to do business with you) customers all supportive of someone remaining in their position in spite of real or potential conflicts of interest then I think it's reasonable to say those are acceptable — and certainly not unethical — conflicts of interest.

The board deserves and has the right to a say, of course, but the extent to which it can justify a position that goes against those other groups is at best debatable even if they are not wholly comfortable with said conflicts. After all, the board should serve the company (customers, employees, shareholders/investors) and not itself. This [1] timeline of OpenAI board changes also seems to suggest some level of opportunism, and the possibility that at other times, or had departing members been replaced, it may not have been possible to get board consensus for firing Sam, either.

[1] https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board