He always does that to give himself cover, but he has clearly shown that his words mean very little in this regard. He always dodges criticism. He used to talk about the importance of him being accountable to the OpenAI board and them being able to fire him if necessary when people were questioning the dangers of having one person have this much control over something as big as bleeding edge AI. He also used to mention how he had no direct financial interests in the company since he had no equity.
Then the board did fire him. What happened next? He came back, the board is gone, he now openly has complete control over OpenAI, and they have given him a potentially huge equity package. I really don't think Sam Altman is particularly trustworthy. He will say whatever he needs to say to get what he wants.
