Let’s investigate.

If you watch Tucker Carlson’s—uh, webshow? X show? Whatever the hell he wants to call it—you know that some of his guests are more believable than others. While he might think of himself as a newsman, at the end of the day, he’s an entertainer—and if he knows that getting the guy who is (IMO) clearly lying about sucking Obama off in a limo will drive clicks, he’ll do that.

That said, it’s hard not to watch his recent interview with the mother of OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji without having your third eye open and start glowing a violent red.

For context, in an October 23, 2024 profile for the New York Times, Balaji claimed that ChatGPT and similar AI tools violate U.S. copyright law by being trained on copyrighted information. He also said that the technology created outputs that can imitate and replace competitors’ products, indicating that this use of the copyrighted material does not fall under Fair Use.

The next month, he was found dead in his apartment with a bullet in his head. Both the San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner and the San Francisco Police Department have ruled his death a suicide—but, according to Balaji’s mom, other investigators looking into the case have questions.

For example, why was blood found all over the apartment if he shot himself in the head? Why was there a random tuft of hair in the place that wasn’t his? And why did everyone interviewed about him say he had no history of mental health issues?

Could it be that, given Balaji’s status as a whistleblower—and the fact that he was a witness in a lawsuit against OpenAI—he was murdered for speaking out against the company?

On its face, it feels like a bit much. Saying “OpenAI steals information” is a “water is wet”-level observation.

Then again, Boeing’s whistleblowers started speaking out *after* planes were already falling apart in the sky, and that didn’t stop them from dropping like flies. Not only that, but given the other unsavory news about Sam Altman—and the fact that OpenAI could play an outsized role in the upcoming administration—it could, *could* be possible that someone up top saw Balaji as a loose end that needed to be snipped.

Thankfully, this is one of those conspiracies that seems to know no specific political party. Both Elon Musk and Democratic California Congressman Ro Khanna have called for further investigation into the death, so…I guess we’ll just have to see what happens. For what it’s worth, I asked ChatGPT if OpenAI was behind the murder, and they said no. But hold on, someone is knocking at my door! Let’s just see who it i—rsghjkcgftfjxh