I think this needs to be viewed through the lens of the gravity of how the board reacted; giving them the benefit of the doubt that they acted appropriately and, at least with the information they had the time, correctly.

A hypothetical example: Would you agree that it's an appropriate thing to do if the second project was Alignment-related, Sam lied or misled about the existence of the second team, to Ilya, because he believed that Ilya was over-aligning their AIs and reducing their functionality?

Its easy to view the board's lack of candor as "they're hiding a really bad, unprofessional decision"; which is probable at this point. You could also view it with the conclusion that, they made an initial miscalculated mistake in communication, and are now overtly and extremely careful in everything they say because the company is leaking like a sieve and they don't want to get into a game of mudslinging with Sam.