hah, they basically stole a coworkers promotion, then told that person that they put in a good word with the boss about them. So silly, I do wonder who actually interprets it as Sam seems to hope people do.
Coworker? They're competitors. This is simply good business.
At this point I think they're targeting two groups: people who aren't paying much attention to this but may see the occasional headline or tweet or soundbite; and people (such as OpenAI employees, and users who might feel compelled to boycott but really don't want to) who are motivated not to see OpenAI as the bad guy and really just need a fig leaf.