He got fired for violating the NDA which said not to share outside of the company, when he shared his conversations with a lawyer in search of representation for the LLM. His opinion on the LLM's level of sentience had no bearing on the decision.
How can you know if the law protects you from breach of the NDA for illegal suppression of e.g. sexual assault allegations or whistleblowing for financial crimes without being able to disclose the matter in question to legal counsel?
You're right, if it had only been with private legal counsel it would probably have been protected, but he also shared his arguments and the complete chat log as a Medium post.
