The parents of the late Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI employee who blew the whistle on the company’s alleged copyright infringements, have filed a lawsuit against San Francisco officials for denying them access to police reports and other records related to their son’s death.
Mercury News reports that Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI employee who gained national attention in October 2024 for exposing the company’s alleged violations of federal copyright laws, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26, 2024. The San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office made a preliminary ruling that Balaji died by suicide, but his parents are now seeking more information about the circumstances surrounding his death.
In a lawsuit, Balaji’s mother and father accused the San Francisco Police Department of “illegally withholding public records” that could provide insight into the nature of their son’s death. The family’s attorneys, Joseph Goethals and Kevin Rooney, questioned the police department’s claim that the documents cannot be released due to an ongoing investigation, despite the family’s assertation that the police are treating the case as if it were already closed.
The lawsuit comes amid growing public speculation and concern about the circumstances of Balaji’s death. Prominent figures such as Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson have weighed in on the matter, with Khanna calling for “a full and transparent investigation” in mid-January.
Balaji had worked at OpenAI for four years before leaving the company and alleging that it repeatedly flouted federal copyright laws by collecting data from across the internet to train its popular chatbot, ChatGPT. His allegations came shortly after several artists and newspapers, including the Mercury News and the New York Times, filed lawsuits accusing OpenAI and its business partner, Microsoft, of stealing their content in violation of U.S. “fair use” laws.
On November 18, the Times named Balaji as someone who had “unique and relevant documents” that could support the outlet’s case against OpenAI. He was one of at least 12 individuals, many of them current or former OpenAI employees, named by the newspaper in court filings as having material helpful to their case.
The lawsuit filed by Balaji’s parents provided some details about a separate, independently commissioned autopsy performed in December. According to the lawsuit, this examination found that Balaji died of a gunshot wound with an “atypical and uncommon” trajectory for suicides. However, the family has not provided a copy of the independent autopsy’s final findings to the media, with Balaji’s mother stating that “it’s not a complete report.”
Read more at Mercury News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
