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Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old OpenAI researcher who left the company in August 2024 and publicly said its training practices violated copyright law, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on November 26, 2024. The medical examiner ruled the death a suicide. His parents dispute the ruling and have sued the apartment complex, alleging tampering with surveillance footage. On November 18, 2024, The New York Times' lawyers asked the court in their copyright case against OpenAI and Microsoft to add him as a document custodian, writing that he would 'have unique and relevant documents supporting The News Plaintiffs' allegations of willful infringement.' He was found dead eight days later. This site records the event as context on what happened to the last OpenAI employee who spoke publicly against the company; it makes no claim about the cause of his death.

2024-11-26

The document

Document: CBS News; ABC7; Courthouse News Service (parents' lawsuit); Legal Dive, Justin Bachman, December 16, 2024 (the November 18 custodian request, as reported from the filing)
Dated: 2024-11-26
Source: open the primary

Who read it

joe, 2026-09-08, search-level across four outlets; Legal Dive fetched and archived the same day (primaries/openai-pulls-2026-09-08/legaldive-2024-12-16-balaji.html), quoting the November 18 letter, which Business Insider reported viewing; the docket entry itself is not held. Relevance to this case: the August 2026 Alabama subpoena demands the identity of every OpenAI employee who raised a safety concern; the Iowa letter demands whistleblower protection.