Staff at Google DeepMind in the UK are pushing executives to release them from non-disparagement agreements that bar them from criticising the company even after they leave, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, 3 November. The workers argue they must be free to inform the public about the risks of the AI they help build, the Post said, citing a contract it reviewed and two current employees.
Google told the Post it has removed the post-termination part of the clause from terms for new hires and does not enforce it after people leave. The staff want it dropped from existing contracts too. A similar demand appeared 882 days earlier, by our arithmetic, in a 2024 open letter whose 13 signers included 2 with Google DeepMind ties, by our count.
According to the Post, some London staff are forbidden by their employment contracts from criticising the company “for the rest of their lives, even if they leave the firm”. The two employees said the agreements block them from communicating with the public about the potential impacts of AI.
Dozens of employees recently joined a discussion about the contract language on an internal messaging platform, one of the employees told the Post. Some posted an emoji of the text “1984”, the employee said.
“This technology is just really consequential and it’s also changing really fast,” one employee told the Post. One said they did not think the lifetime restriction was enforceable but that it could still lead to self-censorship: “If it’s not enforceable then the reason is to basically intimidate people.”
The Post said the complaints followed a former Google DeepMind employee, Sofia Liguori, telling the BBC last month that she had chosen to ignore the restrictions in her contract to speak about her opposition to Google building military AI. We covered that BBC report in DeepMind Researchers Quit Over Google’s Military AI Deals.
Signers of the June 2024 open letter A Right to Warn about Advanced Artificial Intelligence, by lab: 11 current or former OpenAI staff and 2 with Google DeepMind ties, one of whom was also formerly at Anthropic. Our count of the published signatory list.
Business Pill · Least Privilege Explained
A loose fit for this story: a short explainer on least privilege, the governance idea of giving each party only the access its task needs. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Google, its staff or this report.
The key insight:Google says it has already removed the post-exit part of its non-disparagement clause for new hires and does not enforce it once people leave. What the UK staff are asking for is that change in the contracts they already signed. A similar principle was set out 882 days earlier, by our arithmetic, in a letter signed mostly by current and former OpenAI staff.
What Google Says
On Friday, a Google executive responded to the internal discussion and said the company would not enforce the clause for workers who had left, according to the Post.
“We’ve always encouraged an open dialogue about safety and responsibility,” a Google spokesperson told the Post. “Recently, we’ve updated our terms for new hires, which included removing the post-termination aspect of non-disparagement clauses.” The spokesperson said Google has internal channels for workers to escalate concerns to top leaders.
The employees who spoke to the Post said the company should still drop the clause from existing employment contracts, not only from new ones.
The OpenAI Precedent
OpenAI dealt with non-disparagement terms in its own exit paperwork in May 2024. Its CEO, Sam Altman, wrote on X on 18 May 2024 that “we have never clawed back anyone’s vested equity, nor will we do that if people do not sign a separation agreement (or don’t agree to a non-disparagement agreement).”
Altman said there “was a provision about potential equity cancellation in our previous exit docs” and that “this is on me and one of the few times i’ve been genuinely embarrassed running openai”. He said former employees who had signed the old agreements could contact him to have them fixed.
On 4 June 2024, current and former employees of OpenAI and Google DeepMind published an open letter, A Right to Warn about Advanced Artificial Intelligence. It said “broad confidentiality agreements block us from voicing our concerns, except to the very companies that may be failing to address these issues.” Its first principle asked that companies not enter into or enforce any agreement that prohibits “disparagement” or criticism of the company for risk-related concerns.
By our count of the published list, 11 of its 13 signers were current or former OpenAI staff and 2 had Google DeepMind ties: Ramana Kumar, formerly of Google DeepMind, and Neel Nanda, listed as currently at Google DeepMind.
Why It Matters
As we read it, the business lever here is talent: the terms frontier labs ask researchers to sign, including what they may say after they leave, are part of how they compete to hire them.
The Post noted that researchers at Google, OpenAI and Anthropic have publicly resigned in recent months citing concerns about AI, and that executives and staff at Anthropic and OpenAI regularly comment publicly on AI risk while fewer voices from Google have joined that debate. Separately, we covered 20 House Democrats Ask OpenAI 11 Questions on Firings, Hacks.
As we read the Post’s report, the gap is between policy and paper: Google says it will not enforce the clause after people leave, while the staff want that written into existing contracts so they have legal certainty.
As we read it, the timing follows the outside debate: the Post says the complaints came after a former employee told the BBC she had chosen to ignore her contract to speak publicly, which led current staff to check their own contracts.
As we read the 2024 record, OpenAI’s fix came in public and from the top, with its CEO writing that the equity provision should never have been in any documents; Google’s answer so far has come through an internal response and a spokesperson.
Google spokesperson, quoted by The Washington Post, 3 November 2026
“Recently, we’ve updated our terms for new hires, which included removing the post-termination aspect of non-disparagement clauses.”
Three Implications
FOR AI RESEARCHERS The terms a lab asks staff to sign, including what they may say after leaving, are now part of what researchers compare between employers, as we read it.
FOR FRONTIER LABSGoogle’s change covers new hires; the employees who spoke to the Post want it applied to existing contracts as well.
FOR POLICYMAKERS The Post notes that British law protects whistleblowers who speak in the public interest, and one employee said they doubted the lifetime restriction was enforceable.
The framework argues: “Every technology stack has layers. Some are scarce, some are abundant.”
As we read it, what researchers know about a frontier model is one of the scarcest layers a lab holds, and a lifetime non-disparagement clause is a way of keeping part of it closed. The staff are asking to open the part that concerns risk. The framework does not discuss non-disparagement clauses.
What Is Not Established
The Post did not say how many Google DeepMind employees are bound by the clause or how many have pushed to remove it. We did not see the contract or a staff letter, and we found no public petition.
Google’s statement covers new hires and enforcement after people leave; it does not say whether the clause will be removed from existing contracts. We did not contact Google.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Anthropic’s Reality Check, The Capital Squeeze, & The New World Order
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a growthstory. This week it started being priced as a credit story.
UK staff at Google DeepMind want a lifetime ban on criticising the company removed from their existing contracts, and Google says it has already dropped the post-exit part for new hires. A similar request was made 882 days earlier, by our arithmetic, in a letter signed mostly by current and former OpenAI staff, 17 days after OpenAI’s CEO wrote that the company would not claw back vested equity.
A note on sourcing. The staff accounts, the contract terms and Google’s statement are from The Washington Post’s report of 3 November 2026, which we read in full in a syndicated copy whose opening matches the Post’s page. The 2024 letter and its signatories are from righttowarn.ai; Sam Altman’s words are from his post on X of 18 May 2024. The signer counts and day counts are ours. We did not contact Google or the employees.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
