Last Updated:
The authorities have ruled Suchir Balaji’s death a suicide, but his family believes it was a cold-blooded murder and has since called for an FBI investigation.
Suchir Balaji’s mother Poornima Rao and Elon Musk | File Image
Poornima Rao, the mother of whistleblower and former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji, maintained that her son did hard work to fine-tune the ChatGPT platform and accused the AI giant of failing to recognise her son’s contributions to their flagship product.
The San Francisco Police Department has reportedly reopened the case of Suchir Balaji, who was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in November. Balaji had publicly raised ethical concerns over OpenAI’s practices before his death.
Speaking to an influencer on X, Rao said, “He (Suchir Balaji) did something to fine-tune ChatGPT that made it faster and more efficient. But what bothered him was that there was no recognition for his work until he passed away. Even now, there’s no acknowledgement from OpenAI of his contributions. That’s very unfortunate.”
The authorities have ruled Balaji’s death a suicide, but his family believes it was a cold-blooded murder and has since called for an FBI investigation. Rao reiterated that her son could not commit suicide.
OPENAI WHISTLEBLOWER’S MOTHER: MY SON WAS NOT OKAY WITH OPENAI BECOMING FOR-PROFITSuchir Balaji’s mother, Poornima Ramaro:
“The reason he joined OpenAI was his belief that AI will help humanity.
He was very impressed with OpenAI initially because they were nonprofit.
His… https://t.co/593AOb8Kgx pic.twitter.com/Z59susr97U
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 11, 2025
Elon Musk Backs Balaji’s Mother
Resharing the video, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk underscored Balaji’s mother’s points with several exclamation marks. Previously, he had agreed with Rao, who said that her son’s death “did not seem like a suicide”.
Mr Balaji, who worked at OpenAI for nearly four years, resigned in August 2023 after expressing dissatisfaction with the company’s shift to a for-profit model. According to his mother, this shift was a key factor in his decision to leave.
Balaji was outspoken about the ethical and legal concerns he encountered during his tenure at OpenAI. In an interview with The New York Times shortly before his death, he claimed that the company’s AI models had been trained on copyrighted material scraped from the internet without proper authorisation.
On his personal blog, he expanded on these concerns, writing, “This is not a sustainable model for the internet ecosystem as a whole.”
Meanwhile, AI giant OpenAI has vehemently denied these allegations, maintaining that their use of data falls within the bounds of “fair use” under US copyright law.