Options on Microsoft stock, a publicly-traded and stable company, are incomparable to those on OpenAI, which didn't even bother having proper equity to start with. The employees will get hosed. They never got equity, they got "equity." The senior ones will need liquidity, soon, to pay legal counsel; the rest will need to take what they can get.
Usually one would go borrow money from a bank with the shares / options as collateral in these types of cases if you really need the money for legal expenses without liquidating them.
