There are many employers. OpenAI employees that quit on account of this will be in high demand at the other AI companies, especially the ones that don't bend over in 30 seconds when Uncle Donald comes calling.

I don't think you could find a single person working for OpenAI that couldn't find employment elsewhere within a month that pays more than enough for food and shelter. This is a ridiculous statement.

Per levels.fyi, median salary of most openAI positions are above 300k. Even "technical writers" have a median pay of 197k. I searched around the internet and it seems like even entry level positions receive well above 150k. Apart from people with severe lifestyle bloat or an unholy number of dependents I doubt too many people working there will face immediate financial difficulties if they quit.

Anyway, it is also amusing to hear tech people defend their right to earn some of the fattest salaries on this planet using the smol bean technique after a decade of "why wouldn't the West Virginian coal miner just learn to code." It was always about maintaining the lifestyle of yearly Japan vacations and MacBook upgrades and never about subsistence.