OpenAI Whistleblower's Parents Sue San Francisco to Release His Death Records

The parents of Suchir Balaji, the OpenAI critic who was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in November, are suing the city to force the release of records related to their son’s death.

The San Francisco Police Department and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner have said the 26-year-old’s death was a suicide, but a full autopsy has not yet been released.

Balaji’s parents have said they believe foul play was involved in his death, and Kevin J. Rooney, a lawyer representing the family, cast doubt on the official determination.

“We believe that there are lots of facts and evidence that are inconsistent with this being a suicide,” Rooney said. “We believe that it was a homicide.”

Balaji quit his job as an artificial intelligence researcher at OpenAI in August and spoke out in The New York Times about the company’s use of copyrighted data. Roughly a month later — a week after he was named as a potential witness for a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft — Balaji was found dead.

Balaji’s mother, Poornima Ramarao, believes that because no report has been released, the police have not investigated her son’s case. “What bothers us is that the police are not doing any investigations,” Ramarao said.

The SFPD has previously said the investigation is active and being led by the medical examiner’s office.

“They should release the report. And it’s very obvious without doing the investigations, they’re just making press releases that the investigation is active and open,” Ramarao said. “It becomes more obvious that this is a cover-up because if it’s really what they’re claiming, why would they hold on to the report?”

Rooney said he wished they didn’t have to file the petition but hopes the legal action will prompt clearer communication — noting that the city has said the investigation was closed without releasing a report, then said it could not release a report because the investigation was open.

Rooney, who previously worked on homicide investigations, said there are good reasons to keep certain details private, “but you should at least be updating the family on where we are or what they’re pursuing, at least in general terms. And there’s been no such communication.”

Rooney formerly worked as a prosecutor in New York City at the Manhattan district attorney’s office and then in his hometown of Stockton. “It should be a collaborative effort to try to figure out what happened and, when a crime has been committed, to bring the people who committed that crime to justice,” he said of death investigations.

The San Francisco Police Department and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner did not respond to a request for comment.