Suchir Balaji’s parents say it was not suicide: Mother says, ‘no suicide note …blood shots in the bathroom…’

Image credit: X (Twitter)

A video of former Indian-origin OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji‘s parents has gone viral on social media. Earlier, Balaji’s mother Poornima Ramaro shared a post on social media platform X (earlier Twitter) claiming her son’s death was a murder and not a suicide. In the latest video, his parents can be seen further discussing his sudden demise. The video posted on X by Collin Rugg shows Balaji’s father, Balagi Ramamurthy, saying that he was the last person to speak with his son. He also mentioned that his son was happy and didn’t show any signs of depression. Ramaro further added that her son had made plans to visit them in January 2025, making his death even more unexpected. The video has already received 3.6 million views.

Take a look at the video here

What Suchir Balaji’s parents said about his death

In the video, Balaji’s father, Balagi Ramamurthy said: “I was the last person to talk to him. He was happy more, not depressed or anything. And it was his birthday week.”
“He made plans to see us in January. That was the last phone conversation he had with anyone. He went into his apartment and never came out. There was no suicide note left and there was nobody else on the scene, that doesn’t mean they can just come to a conclusion. And we have seen the blood shots in the bathroom, signs of a fight in the bathroom,” Balaji’s mother Poornima Ramaro added.
Balaji, who was also an OpenAI whistleblower, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment last month. The incident occurred three months after he accused the Microsoft-backed AI startup of copyright violations during ChatGPT’s development.
While police have ruled his death a suicide, his family disputes this conclusion. They hired a private investigator and conducted a second autopsy, which they claim contradicts the police’s findings.
Earlier, Rao voiced her concerns through a separate X post where she stated that the “private autopsy does not confirm the cause of death stated by the police,” and that it was “a cold blooded mu*d*r declared by authorities as suicide.”
She called for action from US authorities, urging an FBI investigation into the matter. Along with Elon Musk, she also tagged American biotech entrepreneur and politician Vivek Ramaswamy and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Musk even responded to the post and wrote: “This doesn’t seem like a suicide”