Suchir Balaji Death: Found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26, Suchir Balaji’s death was ruled a suicide by the police, despite no evidence of foul play.
Elon Musk, the wealthiest individual globally, has backed Suchir Balaji’s mother Poornima Ramarao’s claims of foul play in her son’s mysterious death.
Suchir Balaji was an OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT. Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26. The police said, “no evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation.” The San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a suicide.
His mother has called for an FBI investigation, arguing that evidence uncovered through a private autopsy and investigation casts doubt on the police’s conclusion of suicide.
She shared her concerns on X with a post: “Suchir’s apartment was ransacked, signs of struggle in the bathroom and looks like someone hit him in the bathroom based on blood spots. It’s a cold-blooded mu*d*r declared by authorities as suicide. Lobbying in SF city doesn’t stop us from getting justice. We demand FBI investigation”
Update on @suchirbalaji
We hired private investigator and did second autopsy to throw light on cause of death. Private autopsy doesn’t confirm cause of death stated by police.
Suchir’s apartment was ransacked , sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like some one hit him…
— Poornima Rao (@RaoPoornima) December 29, 2024
In response, Elon Musk posted a supporting message on X: “This doesn’t seem like a suicide.”
Update on @suchirbalaji
We hired private investigator and did second autopsy to throw light on cause of death. Private autopsy doesn’t confirm cause of death stated by police.
Suchir’s apartment was ransacked , sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like some one hit him…
— Poornima Rao (@RaoPoornima) December 29, 2024
Balaji’s mother has since reached out to Musk, asking for further assistance in the case. Musk had earlier also tweeted about Suchir Balaji’s death.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2024
Balaji grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and first arrived at the fledgling AI research lab for a 2018 summer internship while studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned a few years later to work at OpenAI, where one of his first projects, called WebGPT, helped pave the way for ChatGPT.
“Suchir’s contributions to this project were essential, and it wouldn’t have succeeded without him,” said OpenAI co-founder John Schulman in a social media post memorializing Balaji. Schulman, who recruited Balaji to his team, said what made him such an exceptional engineer and scientist was his attention to detail and ability to notice subtle bugs or logical errors.
He first raised his concerns about ChatGPT compromising data, with The New York Times, which reported them in an October profile of Balaji.
