On Thursday, 16th January, Poornima, the mother of the deceased AI expert and OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji, expressed dissatisfaction over the police investigation in her son’s death case indicating that he was killed and that he did not commit suicide. In an exclusive conversation with American political commentator, Tucker Carlson, Balaji’s mother said that the police hardly did any investigation to conclude that her son had died of suicide. She said that the authorities at around 2 am on 22nd November knew that the 26-year-old AI expert was dead but they did not disclose it to the family until 5 am.
“The police first called me at around 1 am. However, they refused to enter my son’s apartment saying that they were waiting for two more officers. They didn’t even allow me to enter the apartment. I was worried to the core. Later they asked me to go home and called a white van. It is then when I suspected that my son had died,” Balaji’s mother said adding that no proper investigation was done in her son’s death case. She said that the police in the next 14 minutes concluded that it was a suicide and that Balaji had allegedly shot himself using a gun.
During the post-death rituals then the funeral home suggested to the family that the death didn’t look like a suicide to them. “The authorities at the funeral home said that the death was not normal and that they suspected non-suicidal aspects in the case. They suggested that we do a private autopsy,” the mother said.
Elon Musk, CEO, of Tesla Motors, took cognizance of the interview and said that the entire event regarding the death of Balaji was ‘extremely concerning’.
Extremely concerning
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2025
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“Everybody is suppressed, nobody is ready to come up and tell the truth. Even the attorneys have been made to tell that it is a suicide,” Balaji’s mother added as Carlson asked what steps they as parents took to reverse the claims of suicide.
Balaji’s mother said that her child was extraordinary and that he wanted to work for the betterment of humanity. He initially worked at Open AI but raised his voice against the company and its policies only after he left AI. She said that he clearly later stated that Open AI was making copyright violations.
“A lot of investment has gone into the AI industry. He was named as a witness by the NYT. Within a week, he was found dead. He had documents and some information that would have been very critical. It would have shaken the AI industry, especially OpenAI and Microsoft. If he had given his testimony, it would have had a very big impact,” she said.
Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old Indian-origin AI expert was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26th. The police ruled the event as a suicide but reports suggest that before his death, Balaji had sounded an alarm on OpenAI’s allegedly illegal copyright practices in the development of ChatGPT. He had left OpenAI in August.
Poornima said that her son was not a whistleblower but just wanted to reveal the harmful effects of AI LLM (large language model) which could turn the AI industry upside down.
“He was not a whistleblower against OpenAI, all he was saying was that the AI LLM model is harmful. It doesn’t render the data as it is. This is not only about copyright violations but also about the harm to humanity because the data output is not as expected. A whistleblower is only when he is inside the company, but he had left OpenAI. Until he was there, he never raised his voice against the management,” she said.
Earlier also in December, Poornima stated that her son was killed and nobody from Open AI even cared about his death. Notably, Suchir was found dead just three months after he publicly accused OpenAI, his former employer, of copyright violations during the development of ChatGPT. The revelation made by Suchir was expected to play a vital role in lawsuits against the AI tech company.
The mother also added that Balaji was not depressed or anxious which could have allegedly triggered him to commit suicide. “He was happy, not depressed or anything. And it was his birthday week,” the mother said adding that his father was the last person he spoke to.
The parents of Balaji have expressed disbelief that their son could take his own life. They have called for an FBI investigation into the death of Suchir Balaji to uncover the truth.