That seems a reasonable takeaway. Plenty of grounds for criticising the board's handling of this, but the tone of the letter is pretty openly "we're going to go and work directly for Microsoft unless you agree to return the company focus to working indirectly for Microsoft"...

Assuming this is all over safety vs non-safety is a large assumption. I'm wary of convenient narratives.

At most all we have is some rumours that some board members were unhappy with the pace of commercialization of ChatGPT. But even if they didn't make the ChatGPT store or do a bigco-friendly devday powerpoint, it's not like AI suddenly becomes 'safer' or AGI more controlled. Less commercialization does not automatically equal more safety.

This could just as easily be summed up as an internal culture battle over product development and a clash of personalities. A lot of handwringing with little specifics.