OpenAI Whistleblower Suchir Balaji’s Death Confirmed as Suicide
San Francisco police have officially ruled the death of Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old former OpenAI software developer, as a suicide, following months of speculation and a lawsuit from his parents demanding a full investigation. Balaji was found dead in his apartment on November 26, 2024, with a gunshot wound to the head.
While authorities initially deemed it a suicide, his parents insisted foul play was involved, citing concerns over the investigation’s transparency. They pursued legal action to obtain a complete report from law enforcement.
SFPD writes inaccurate information in
Autopsy and Police report . They have never retrieved CCTV footage from leasing office . We need report from police.
We are only requesting transparent investigation.@elonmusk @kash_patel @MarioNawfal— Poornima Rao (@RaoPoornima) February 15, 2025
On Saturday (15), 2025, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) released their findings, confirming their initial ruling. The four-page joint response and a 13-page medical examiner’s report concluded that Balaji had died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“The OCME found no evidence or information to establish a cause and manner of death for Mr. Balaji other than a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head,” stated the medical examiner’s report. SFPD added that there was no sufficient evidence to suggest homicide.
Balaji, a San Francisco Bay Area native, was a University of California, Berkeley graduate who joined OpenAI after college. He worked at the company for four years, contributing to its large language models, including ChatGPT.
However, in August 2024, he left OpenAI and later went public with allegations that the company was violating copyright laws by scraping vast amounts of online content to train its AI models. His claims were featured in an October article by The New York Times, where he stated, “If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company.”
One month after speaking out, Balaji was found dead in his locked apartment. His mother, Poornima Ramarao, had contacted police after not hearing from him for days. Since then, she and her husband, Balaji Ramamurthy, have publicly questioned the circumstances surrounding their son’s death.
They commissioned independent forensic investigations that reportedly found inconsistencies, including the absence of a suicide note and alleged anomalies in blood spatter patterns. Ramarao took to social media, calling her son’s death a “cold-blooded murder.” Her posts caught the attention of Elon Musk, who replied, “This doesn’t seem like a suicide.”
The case gained further attention when Ramarao appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show in January 2025, adding to the growing speculation and conspiracy theories about Balaji’s death. On January 31, his parents sued the San Francisco police to obtain a full investigative report.
The newly released reports cite multiple reasons supporting the suicide ruling. The medical examiner found no signs of bruising or forced entry. The apartment door was locked from the inside, and windows were not viable points of entry. Internet searches on Balaji’s computer indicated interest in brain anatomy, and forensic tests confirmed the gun was his. Gunshot residue was found on both hands, and toxicology reports detected alcohol and amphetamines in his system.
San Francisco police chief Bill Scott and OCME executive director David Serrano Sewell acknowledged the family’s grief, stating, “We realize that this information is difficult to receive. We hope that this response may help bring some amount of closure to his grieving parents, friends, and family.” Despite the official ruling, Balaji’s parents remain unconvinced, leaving the case shrouded in controversy.
