Suchir Balaji

**Suchir Balaji** (November 21, 1998 – November 26, 2024) was an American artificial intelligence researcher. He died several weeks after accusing his former employer, OpenAI, of breaking United States copyright law. Balaji's death received wide attention because his parents and others said there might have been foul play, and because he was seen as a whistleblower. The San Francisco Police Department said they found "no evidence of foul play," and the Chief Medical Examiner ruled his death a suicide.

## Early life and education 
Balaji was born in Florida on November 21, 1998, in an Indian-American family. He grew up in Cupertino, California, where both of his parents worked in the technology industry. In 2017, he placed 7th in a Kaggle "Passenger Screening Algorithm Challenge" sponsored by the TSA, and won $100,000 in prize money. He won first place in the 2017 Pacific Northwest Regional and Berkeley Programming Contests, and placed 31st in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest 2018 World Finals. He wrote a paper on chip design at age 14. At 17, he took a gap year and worked as a software developer at Quora.

After his gap year, Balaji attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a BA in computer science. While in college, he interned at Scale AI in 2019. He joined OpenAI after graduating in 2021.

Balaji left OpenAI in August 2024 after becoming disappointed with what he saw as the company's business practices. He said, "If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company." After leaving, he said he was working on "personal projects." which he had published on his personal website earlier that week. In the essay, he used a mathematical analysis of outputs from chatbots such as ChatGPT and argued that they do not pass the four-factor test for determining fair use under U.S. copyright law.  On November 26, 2024, police found Balaji dead in his apartment with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Because of his role as a possible "custodial witness" in *The New York Times*s lawsuit against OpenAI, and his public claims that OpenAI violated AI copyright law and followed poor AI ethics practices, Balaji's death attracted major public and media interest. News coverage also highlighted his essay in which he laid out his legal arguments against OpenAI.

Before the official autopsy was released in February, Balaji's parents publicly questioned the initial conclusion that he had killed himself. They began a public campaign to challenge what they saw as an incorrect ruling from San Francisco authorities. They said that he had been "cheerful" about two weeks before his death and pointed to the lack of a suicide note and what they described as "blood spatter anomalies" in his apartment. In December 2024, his parents announced that they had hired private investigators and ordered a second autopsy. They claimed that this autopsy suggested homicide, saying that Balaji was shot "in the back of the head from an angle at which he could not have shot himself." They did not release a copy of the report, and their lawyer said he "would not characterize it as conclusively proving murder". The official autopsy by the OCME described the bullet path as going from front to back and downward.

Claims of foul play increased in visibility after Elon Musk (who has had public disputes with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman) replied to a social media post by Balaji's mother and wrote that the death "doesn't seem like a suicide." In January, Tucker Carlson discussed Balaji's death with his mother on his podcast. That same day, Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna called for a "full and transparent investigation" into the case. San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder also said she was "concerned" about the circumstances of Balaji's death.

*Fortune* magazine described the parents' actions as part of a sincere attempt to understand what had happened to their only child. The magazine spoke with several of Balaji's friends, who shared the parents' confusion and grief. It quoted Daren Firestone, an "attorney who works regularly with whistleblowers," who said that whistleblowers can feel lonely and doubtful, face "enormous pressure," and may feel that the "world is against [them]." *Fortune* also pointed out that "Balaji wasn’t divulging any previously unknown inside information about the company" and, comparing the situation to the John Barnett case, said that the parents' campaign had helped drive more online speculation.

### Official position 
As of April 2025, the official conclusion of the San Francisco Police Department and the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is that Balaji died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

## Notes 
## References 
## Other websites 
*  
* *When does generative AI qualify for fair use?* (Balaji's original essay alleging copyright violations, dated 23 October 2024)