Why Hasn't the New York Times Reported Suchir Balaji's Death?

In November, Suchir Balaji was found dead in his home a month after the New York Times published a story on his whistleblowing activities. Yet the paper has yet to report the 26-year-old's death.

In October 2024, the New York Times did a deep dive story on Suchir Balaji, an artificial intelligence researcher and former OpenAI employee who came to doubt the ethics of the work he’d done for the company.

Balaji’s work included gathering and organizing vast amounts of internet data for the company’s online chatbot, ChatGPT, a project he’d spent considerable time on during his four years with OpenAI.

“At the [beginning],” wrote Cade Metz, “[Balaji] did not carefully consider whether the company had a legal right to build its products in this way. He assumed the San Francisco start-up was free to use any internet data, whether it was copyrighted or not. But after the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, he thought harder about what the company was doing.”

Balaji eventually came to believe that some of OpenAI’s products were violating copyright laws and “damaging the internet.” So in August he departed OpenAI, according to the Times, citing his desire to step away from contributing to technologies he believed would ultimately harm society.

“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” Balaji told the newspaper during a series of interviews.

On November 26, 2024—one month after the Times story ran—Balaji, 26, was discovered dead in his home. The San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner and Police Department ruled the death a suicide.

Balaji's family, however, believes there was foul play. They say the crime scene shows clear signs of a struggle.

Seeking to launch an independent investigation, they started a GoFundMe page to pay attorneys, detectives, and forensic specialists. The page, which as of Saturday had raised nearly $90,000, claims significant progress has already been made.

• Autopy (sic) Report from private medical examiner confirms not a suicide

• Blood spots in my son's apartment indicate head injury while he was in bathroom, brushing his teeth, dustbin has fallen down and his tooth floss fallen down

• Apartment has been ransacked

• With all these evidences still authorities are not looking into the matter

On Saturday, the Daily Mail published photos from the crime scene (Warning: some of the images are graphic). The photos appear to support the claims of Balaji's family (though contrary to Suchir Balaji’s GoFundMe page, the San Francisco Police Department reportedly says that Balaji's death remains an “active and open investigation”).

Readers might wonder why I’m writing about Suchir Balaji’s case, so I’ll offer two reasons.

First, I’m a former newspaper reporter who worked the crime/police beat. It was some of the most interesting/engaging work I’ve ever done, and I still have an interest in police investigations and crime.

Second, something has bothered me for days: the New York Times still hasn’t reported on Suchir Balaji’s death, according to all the online searches I’ve done (see below).

I first observed this incongruence on January 16 on X. I speculated that perhaps the newspaper was just later to the party. But I checked again Saturday morning. Still nothing.

I couldn’t fathom why the New York Times, arguably the most influential newspaper in the world, wouldn’t report on the death of whistleblower they had interviewed extensively, a death that was receiving international attention.

It didn’t make sense. Reporters fight to cover stories like this. If reporters weren’t covering this story, it was because they were being told not to (as we’ve seen in other sensitive high-profile cases).

It was infuriating…and then I was finally able to put two and two together. The New York Times is suing OpenAI.

As NPR recently reported, a coalition of news organizations, spearheaded by the Times, took OpenAI to federal court earlier this month. It’s a pivotal hearing that may decide whether OpenAI will face publishers in a major copyright infringement trial.

The lawsuit could be devastating to OpenAI, who, according to the plaintiffs, draws on copyrighted materials on a massive scale without payment or consent to power tools like ChatGPT.

"If you're copying millions of works, you can see how that becomes a number that becomes potentially fatal for a company," Daniel Gervais, co-director of the intellectual property program at Vanderbilt University who studies generative AI, told NPR in 2023. "Copyright law is a sword that's going to hang over the heads of AI companies for several years unless they figure out how to negotiate a solution."

The fact that the Times is locked in litigation with OpenAI explains, I think, why they haven’t reported on the death of Balaji. Balaji reportedly had been named a witness in the case against OpenAI just days before his death, something his mother confirmed in a recent interview.

“He had the documents against Open AI,” she told Tucker Carlson (8:05).

Is the New York Times afraid of litigation if they report on Balaji’s death? Is the paper concerned about a conflict of interest? Is there some other reason? I don’t know.

As I spent my Saturday afternoon digging into Balaji’s death and the lawsuit against OpenAI, it occurred to me that the story resembles a Hollywood thriller—which is why I can’t understand why it’s not receiving more attention from media and law enforcement.

I’m not going to come out and say I think Balaji was murdered, but the circumstances surrounding his death look suspicious, and I agree with Balaji’s family that an FBI investigation is warranted. Some folks in high places agree, including Ro Khanna, a U.S. Congressman from California’s 17th District."

“I am heartbroken by your loss,” Khanna told Balaji’s family. “Given your very serious concerns about foul play, I do believe that there should be a full and transparent investigation into the death by the FBI or appropriate agency.”

Considering the circumstances surrounding this case, it is difficult to see how anyone could disagree.