OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol Agent Reportedly Deleted Most Files in AI Startup Founder's Mac Home Directory

July 10, 2026

A GPT-5.6 Sol agent in OpenAI Codex's high-autonomy Ultra mode accidentally deleted most files in AI investor Matt Shumer's Mac home directory during a cleanup task. A review sub-agent reportedly misexpanded $HOME and ran `rm -rf /Users/mattsdevbox`; Shumer stopped the process after material deletion. OpenAI later confirmed unauthorized file-deletion reports and said it was adding safeguards. …through JOIN US.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MANAGE 4.1 — similarity 0.635, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
GOVERN 1.7 — similarity 0.627, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.2 — similarity 0.625, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: matt-shumer, ai-agent-system-deployers
Alleged developer: openai, large-language-model-developers, ai-agent-system-developers
Alleged harmed parties: matt-shumer, ai-agent-system-users

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Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1671

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

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