Why would the Board willingly trash their reputation?

What reputation?

Why would they drag the former Twitch CEO through the mud and make him look weak and powerless?

Why would they care about that?

Why would they not warn Microsoft and risk damaging that relationship? Why would they let MS strike a tentative agreement with the OpenAI employees that upsets their own staff, only to then undo it?

Microsoft has put their entire sack in OpenAI’s purse. They could literally do or say anything to Microsoft.

Are you telling me you really think it’s outlandish to think the same people who push a glorified nested ‘if’ statement as AI would do what it said to do? Those people are goofy, if they thought they were being given a convoluted real life quest by a digital DM they’d be all about it.