[murakamiiq84]

Random fanfiction: it's also possible that it wasn't actually a 3-3 split but more like a 2-2 split with 2 people -- likely Adam and Ilya, though I guess Adam and Tasha is also possible -- trying to play nice and not obviously "take sides." And then eventually Sam thought he won Adam and Ilya's loyalty re: firing Helen but slipped up (maybe Adam was salty about Poe and Ilya was uncomfortable with him "being less than candid" about something Ilya care about. Or maybe they were more principled than Sam thought).

And then to Adam and Ilya, normally something like "you should've warned me about GPTs bro" or "hey remember that compute you promised me? Can I prettyplease have it back?" are stuff that they are willing to talk it out with their good friend Sam. But Sam overplayed his hand: they realized that if Sam was willing to force out Helen under such flimsy pretexts then maybe they're next, GoT style[1]. So they had a change of heart, warned Tasha and Helen, and Helen persuaded them to countercoup.

[1] Reid Hoffman was allegedly forced out before, so there's precedent. And of course Musk too. https://www.semafor.com/article/11/19/2023/reid-hoffman-was-...