Sam Altman breaks silence on OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji’s death, Elon Musk reacts: ‘He was murdered’

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has opened up abut the death of former company employee and whitleblower Suchir Balaji. In a recent interaction with Tucker Carlson, Altman was grilled about the incident which the host said was clearly a murder.

“So you’ve had you had complaints from one programmer who said you guys were basically stealing people’s stuff and not paying them, and then he wound up murdered. What happened?” Carlson asked the OpenAI CEO.

“Also a great tragedy. He committed suicide.” Altman replied.

“Well, he was like a friend of mine. This is like a guy that, not a close friend, but this is someone that worked at Open AI for a very long time. I was really shaken by this tragedy. I spent a lot of time trying to, you know, read everything I could as I’m sure you and others did too about what happened. It looks like a suicide to me.” he added

However, Carlson wasn’t ready to accept the suicide explanation and continued to question Altman about more details on the incident. Carlson pointed to a few of things that sit right with him like blood being present in two rooms, Balaji ordering takeout food and even talking to a family member before his death.

“Why would the security camera wires be cut? How did he end up bleeding in two rooms after shooting himself? Why was there a wig in the room that wasn’t his? And has there ever been a suicide with no indication that the person was suicidal, someone who had just ordered takeout food?” Carlson shot back

Sam Altman on allegations of Balaji being murdered on his orders:

Carlson also raised allegations by Balaji’s mother that the OpenAI whistleblower was murdered at his home on Altman’s orders.

“Do you believe that?” asked Altman

Carlson then stated that the accusations were “worth looking into”, and stated that if Balaji was really his friend then Altman should offer to talk to his mother.

Altman clarified that he did offer to talk to Balaji’s mother but she didn’t want to.

“I feel strange and sad debating this. You are a little bit accusing me. this was like a wonderful person and a family that is clearly struggling. I think you can totally take the point that you’re just trying to get to the truth of what happened, and I respect that, but I think his memory and his family deserve to be treated with a level of respect and grief that I don’t quite feel here I’m asking at the behest of his.” he added

The OpenAI CEO also noted that he didn’t feel like Balaji had commited suicide after looking at the first set of information that came out. However, he states, that after seeing more details in the investigation he was convinced about the suicide.

Elon Musk reacts to Altman’s interview:

xAI CEO Elon Musk also reacted to the interview in a post on X (formerly Twitter) and said, “He was murdered”.

Musk has previously cast doubts on the police’s suicide conclusion and voice calls for a broader investigation in the matter.

26 year old Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in November last year. The AI researcher had earlier alleged that OepnAI engaged in copyright violations by using publicly available information to train its models.