Although San Francisco police have repeatedly said the death of OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji was suicide, influential figures on each ends of the political spectrum are spreading questions around the globe about a criminal offense raised by the young man's grieving family.
Former Fox News provocateur Tucker Carlson spoke with Balaji's mother Poornima Ramarao on his podcast Tuesday about her son's death in November and said he expects to be a possible witness in a lawsuit against his employer OpenAI. The podcast was headlined that Balaji was “probably murdered.”
hours later, a pc scientist from Turkey posted the accusation to his 35,000 followers on the social media platform X: “Looks like the OpenAI whistleblower was murdered by OpenAI.”
Then on Wednesday, Elon Musk reposted the claim to his 213 million followers on X via one other contributor on the platform with 1 million followers who said: “OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji was murdered” with a clip from the Carlson podcast. Musk also retweeted a post with a Excerpt from this podcast where Ramarao talks about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Speculation that the 26-year-old's death was not of his own making also crossed the political divide. Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna called on Wednesday for “a full and transparent investigation” after Balaji raised “very serious concerns about a crime committed by his family.”
Nolan Higdon, a lecturer at Cal State University East Bay who studies online culture and propaganda, described the continuing public chatter as “a fascinating, baseless conspiracy, particularly because it attracts people from across the political spectrum.”
In a press release, OpenAI said: “Law enforcement is the appropriate authority in this situation and we trust them to continue to share updates as necessary.”
Experts say many conspiracy theories gain credibility because they’re based on a kernel of truth. A month later, Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26 he told the New York Times that OpenAI violated federal copyright laws to siphon data from the Internet that it used to power its artificial intelligence. In court filings, the newspaper had named him as certainly one of several people whose “unique and relevant documents” would help its copyright lawsuit against OpenAI.
Balaji's allegations followed lawsuits from artists and 7 newspapers – including The Mercury News and The New York Times – accusing OpenAI and a business partner, Microsoft, of using their content in violation of current U.S. “fair use” laws having stolen how people can use previously published work.
“In this case, the core of the truth has to do with what he did a month before his death,” said Subramaniam Vincent, an ethics expert at Santa Clara University.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office determined in a preliminary ruling that Balaji died by suicide, but said a final autopsy report is not going to be released until toxicology tests are accomplished. No details have been released.
Balaji's mother told Carlson that a non-public autopsy commissioned by the family suggested a murderer shot him. The family told this news organization that they don’t imagine Balaji died by suicide, but declined to share the autopsy.
In the absence of definitive, definitive details about how Balaji died, online speculation gave shape and impetus to a conspiracy theory.
Doubts about whether Balaji took his own life began circulating on social media even before his mother spoke out, partially out of compassion for his family, said Vincent, director of journalism and media ethics on the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics from Santa Clara University.
“They want answers,” Vincent said. “They feel that the lack of response from the police beyond the initial determination and the quick assessment that it was a suicide and nothing else gives them cause for concern.”
If someone considered a whistleblower suddenly dies while able to reveal more information, “that's enough for people to sense that something is wrong,” Vincent said. “Then the whole army of people come online.”
Online influencers — like the one that reposted Musk, who screamed murder and has greater than 1,000,000 followers — are jumping into the dialogue, attempting to “start a cycle of speculation” and “fuel the fire,” said Vincent.
For influencers and would-be influencers, who can receives a commission for social media posts with high user engagement, and for podcasters like Carlson, who sell promoting from their shows, spreading conspiracy theories can bring financial rewards, Higdon said.
“Things like murder, assassination, cover-up,” Higdon said, “all of that gets people’s attention.”
Musk has a history of publicizing his personal and business disputes through online attacks. An early investor in OpenAI and former board co-chairman alongside Altman, Musk has filed two lawsuits — certainly one of which was later dropped — over the San Francisco startup's transition from nonprofit to for-profit.
“He doesn’t exactly have a love affair with OpenAI,” Vincent said.
Skepticism amongst conservatives about government institutions leads many legal advocates to reject official narratives, akin to the finding that Balaji died by suicide, Higdon said.
“It is not surprising that some have moved from skepticism to outright allegations of wrongdoing,” Higdon said. “However, the lack of accountability to the rich and powerful in today’s legal system – something criticized across the ideological spectrum – contributes to this mindset.”
Khanna didn’t immediately reply to questions on the timing of his post and his concerns about Balaji's death. The congressman's post got here the day after Balaji's mother, Tucker, told Carlson she hadn't heard from him, and Carlson picked up his phone on camera and said he was texting Khanna.
Balaji just isn’t the primary Bay Area tech industry insider whose death fueled Musk and Carlson's conspiracy theories. Both used the 2023 assassination of tech founder Bob Lee in San Francisco to advance culture war attacks on the town as a criminal hellhole, with Musk tweeting: “Violent crime in SF is terrible“, and Carlson, then at Fox News, said in San Francisco: “This form of thing happens to normal people on a regular basis.”
An East Bay technology consultant and Lee associate was convicted of murder last month.
Originally published:
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