OpenAI terminated the employment relationship with an employee who used insider information for gambling on prediction markets.

OpenAI Fires Employee for Using Insider Information

At the beginning of this year, OpenAI CEO for Fiji Applications Fidji Simo posted an internal message to all employees announcing that one of them had been terminated. The reason was the illegal use of confidential company data to trade on prediction markets, including the Polymarket platform.

OpenAI press secretary Kayla Wood clarified: “Our policy prohibits employees from using OpenAI’s internal information for personal purposes, including participating in bets on the prediction market.” The company did not disclose the name of the employee being fired or details of their trades.

What are prediction markets?
On these platforms users bet on the outcomes of any future events:

- Winner of the US Super Cup
- Daily Bitcoin price
- IPO date of an AI company
- Nvidia quarterly earnings
- OpenAI product announcements in 2026, etc.

For example, on Polymarket you can bet on which specific OpenAI products will appear next year or when the company goes public. Bets can yield large payouts: a recent accountant won $470,300 on Kalshi by betting against DOGE supporters.

Why is this important?
Recent large trades on prediction markets tied to tech events have drawn attention to the potential use of insider information by employees of major IT companies. One user under the pseudonym “Google whale” earned over $1 million on Polymarket by betting on events related to Google, including a forecast about who would become the most popular person in search in 2025.

Thus, OpenAI has taken a strict stance: any attempts to use company internal data for personal gain are unacceptable and can lead to termination.