Suchir Balaji’s Mother On The Tucker Carlson Show (Transcript)

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Very recently.

TUCKER CARLSON: When did he write his now famous paper about what the management of OpenAI was doing with copyrighted material?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: He — next day, he already had made up his mind prior leaving to leaving OpenAI. In fact, in July, he discussed with his UC Berkeley colleague that he wanted to do a startup and his friend expressed interest, his name is Tyler Zhu. And the next day after leaving OpenAI, he went on interview with Canadian news media. We didn’t know anything about it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Hmm.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah. We just found out — based on his call logs and he spoke to someone for 40 minutes after his passing. We called him and found out he was single. And it was next day after his last day at work.

TUCKER CARLSON: Who did he speak to?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: I’ll get back to you on that.

TUCKER CARLSON: But he spoke to a reporter. Canadian news media.

TUCKER CARLSON: Canadian news media that sued OpenAI.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Canadian news media. Canadian news media that sued OpenAI.

TUCKER CARLSON: Interesting.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: On October 23rd, his interview was published in New York Times, where he makes a very, very open statement. And he calls OpenAI violates copyright data.

TUCKER CARLSON: On October 23rd, he was quoted in the New York Times saying that OpenAI violates copyright law.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s stealing other people’s material.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay. And what day did he die?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: I’m sorry?

TUCKER CARLSON: And what day did he die?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: 22nd November. But we found the body on 26th November.

TUCKER CARLSON: So, he was quoted saying that OpenAI was committing crimes and a month later he was dead.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: That’s not just it. On November 18th, New York Times named my son as custodian witness. Custodian witness is very, very important. He had the documents against OpenAI. That was on 18th; 22nd, he just came back from vacation from L.A. and Catalina Island the same night. They have attacked him and killed him.

The Documents and Suchir’s Plans

TUCKER CARLSON: Tell us about what the New York Times wrote on November 18th. He had these documents. What were the documents?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We need to get the documents from New York Times. It’s a sealed document. It’s not open for public. But we need to become like the estate administrator. My husband will be the estate administrator end of this month. Then, they will go and acquire the data. What documents they were. At the moment, we don’t have information.

TUCKER CARLSON: But you know because you read it in the New York Times that your son had given journalists papers that he says implicated OpenAI in crime.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes. And also, on December 2nd, Suchir had an interview planned with Associated Press, Matt O’Brien. On December 2nd, Suchir did not attend. Third, they called on his phone. By then, we had his phone. My husband took phone call. And he found out that Suchir wanted to take legal action against OpenAI. He wanted to give the witness. By then, this news was not out yet that Suchir was a custodian witness. But we got it.

Then, all we did was hurrying up the second autopsy, private autopsy moment. We heard that this was his initiative. And he didn’t make it to do that.

TUCKER CARLSON: So, to bottom line it, it sounds like your son who is your only child, by the way. And I’m really sorry about that. Your son was in a position to threaten, really threaten OpenAI.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Well, it’s not. His intent was not to threaten. He just cared about people. He cared about humanity. He writes in his article in New York Times as well as the publication. He believes the way the AI is currently without any regulation is a harm to humanity. He stood up for a cause and he lost his life for a cause. He’s a martyr. Obviously, he’s a martyr. And then he never hesitated. He put his life at risk.

Questions about Suchir’s Death

TUCKER CARLSON: So, the official cause of death is suicide. You’re his mother. Clearly, you spoke to him a lot. Did you get any indication that he was depressed?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No, he just came back from vacation. He had a very active lifestyle. When we had his memorial service, many of his friends came and they gave the details of when they met him and how many times they met him after he left. He was visiting family. They were going out for dinner, lunch. He was fine. And more than anything else, he had concrete career plans.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, and interviews scheduled and things on his to-do list. Did he ever suggest to you, say to you that he felt his life was threatened? Was he worried?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: He had concrete plans. He wanted to do some work for humanity. That’s the last day when we spoke. Last conversation with Suchir in person was that. And he didn’t want to take the salary for his work. He said, “Mama, I have enough resources. I don’t even need to get paid. I want to serve humanity.” And he wanted to work in neuroscience and machine learning combination.

Using that, I think I’ve seen on his desktop one of the projects for future of doctor visit. Since we haven’t unlocked his email and laptop yet, we have to discover that. But we know he discussed with me. It’s a one-year plan. He said, “Give me a one-year time. You’ll know everything.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Did he ever talk to you about Sam Altman? Did you ever talk to your son about Sam Altman?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No, we refused to.

TUCKER CARLSON: You refused to?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We refused to talk to Sam Altman.

TUCKER CARLSON: But did your son ever talk to you about Sam Altman? Did he ever say anything about Altman?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Not to me, but to his friends a lot. When he was in Catalina Islands, he spoke a lot against him. He literally didn’t like him. In fact, I’ve seen his chat log saying that he wanted to work with Annie Altman in her nonprofit work.

TUCKER CARLSON: And that would be Sam’s sister who was accused him of sexual abuse. Really? He wrote that down?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes. So he knew what personality Sam Altman had. And his main concerns were the lies.

TUCKER CARLSON: The lies?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: The lies that Sam Altman used. Yeah, he was lying a lot. And my son was very ethical and he couldn’t stand it.

The Timeline of Suchir’s Death

TUCKER CARLSON: So the time, if we could go to the timeline around your son’s death. So he goes to Catalina Island with friends.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: To backpack? To camp?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Backpacking, yes. November 16th to November 22nd. There were five guys who went and my son was one of them. All these are his middle school and high school classmates. Some of them are his best buddies. We spoke to every one of them when they came back. And everyone gave an image like he is upbeat, he was very happy. He celebrated his 26th birthday on 21st November, the day before he died. What more do we need to give an account of his happy mood?

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly. And if you, you know, at a certain age, you know people who’ve killed themselves. And typically, you know, the suicide follows a morose period of isolation. The person sitting alone in his apartment drinking. He died the night he came back from a camping trip with his high school and college friends.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes.

Investigation at Suchir’s Apartment

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Tony, he came to his apartment with us. And the moment he inspected his apartment, he said he had fresh supplies ordered. He has so many pockets unopened. This doesn’t look suicidal at all.

TUCKER CARLSON: So, and the photographs that you took, which we’ll get to in a minute. You know, I just want to say, this is not the first time I’ve been contacted by a family saying, you know, our child ruled a suicide, but we think it was a murder. I mean, many people have claimed that. I’ve never seen anything like this before. This is, I think, again, to any fair person suggests that he was murdered. But let’s get to that. So what do you know? He came back from Catalina. And if you don’t mind telling us what you know about what happened, then he comes back that evening to San Francisco.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: He came around like 11 o’clock. He texted me. His flight is taking off. That was on 22nd. And then 4:54, he texted saying that it’s pouring in San Francisco. When he got off Uber, leaving office manager, he has apparently seen Suchir coming off a big suitcase and other things. And then Suchir said, “Yes, I’m coming back from LA.” That’s somewhere between 1 to 2 p.m. that day.

And then he spoke to dad at 7:15 p.m. He was very happy. And Balaji said, like, shall we go to CES in Las Vegas in January? Because it was raining here. Dad brought up the concept that, you know, weather will be great in January. And Suchir said yes. And dad gave him a birthday gift.

TUCKER CARLSON: Gave him a birthday gift.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Birthday gift. Because 21st was his birthday. He said he’ll send him cash, just a token of love. And Suchir accepted it.

TUCKER CARLSON: And that’s the night he died?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: That day he died.

TUCKER CARLSON: So his last conversation with his father was what time, roughly?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: That’s the last conversation. I called the next day, 12:15 p.m. Phone rang once. And it went to voicemail.

TUCKER CARLSON: When did you learn that your son was dead?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: That was on 26th. 25th I went to his apartment, knocked on the door. No one opened. I called the dispatch. Unfortunately, it took a day’s effort for us to get his apartment open. 25th they went and they didn’t even call me back what happened. Apparently they have gone and knocked on the door. They didn’t bother to open the door. They just said, okay, nobody’s opening the door. And they went back. Security guard from the apartment complex says he saw the firetruck and the ambulance and the police. And they went back.

5:30 I waited, waited and waited. And 5:30 p.m. when I called on Monday, 25th, they said, “Ma’am, unless you are here, we cannot open the door.”

Next morning, I went to Union City Police Station, that’s where we live, and filed a missing person complaint. I waited for one, one and a half hours. But both the parents, me and my husband, we started calling all the hospitals in San Francisco area to see if he may have had an accident, why he’s not responding to us, what happened to him. Moment we found that he was not in any of the hospitals, we took a deep breath. Okay, he’s safe. But when we went to his apartment, one o’clock, I went to San Francisco. And the dispatch came at 1:09. Until four o’clock, we were not told anything.

TUCKER CARLSON: And then you got a call from from the city?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No, that is not how it went. 1:09, two people, two officers came. And they went with the leasing office manager, leasing manager, and I’m waiting outside. They didn’t allow me inside the premises. I’m waiting outside the complex. Then 1:13, they have seen, apparently, that’s what the report says. They’ve seen the body.

Within 5-10 minutes, they came out. And they told me, “No, we didn’t enter. We were waiting for two more officers. We have a security protocol, we cannot go inside.” Around two o’clock, two more officers came.

TUCKER CARLSON: But they knew your son was dead and they lied to you?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: They didn’t tell at that moment. Two o’clock, they have a protocol, I don’t blame them. Two o’clock, two officers came. They went inside. 20 minutes, they came back and said, “We’re waiting for two more officers. We have security protocol, we can’t go inside.”

And they said at two o’clock, they said, “Ma’am, you can go back home. We’ll inform you in five to six hours.” I said, “I’m not going anywhere.” They told me it’s going to take some time for the next two officers to come. I said, “Let it be. Please give me the phone number. I’ll contact them and find out if there’s any way we can expedite it. My son’s safety is in question. I cannot wait any longer.”

And then at 3:20, I saw a big white van coming. And my heart sank.

TUCKER CARLSON: So they knew as they were speaking to you that your son was dead, but didn’t tell you?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: They didn’t tell.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s disgusting. That’s inhuman. Sorry.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: It is. It is. And you know, they’re asking me to go home. And how I knew my son was dead is looking at the white van. At that moment, I knew ambulance didn’t come. And even then I was optimistic. OK, maybe ambulance wasn’t available. They sent another van. And when I just saw a stretcher that came out, I went and spoke to the officers who are the medical examiners. They said we have a dead person in the apartment. That’s how I came to know.

Discovering Suchir’s Death

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. That is really, I mean, that is, I didn’t know things like that happened. That is awful.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: It’s a gated community. He had a gun with him to protect himself. What more can we expect in America than this? It’s a very reputed apartment complex, not that it’s cheap or something. They have four or five units, four or five buildings, I mean to say.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did the officers at the scene give you any indication of how they thought your son died?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: At four o’clock, they came to the leasing office and the medical examiner said he shot himself. He killed himself. It’s a suicide. At that moment, I raised to them, “Look, my son went into New York Times. He’s a whistleblower and his death doesn’t look suicide to me.”

They just didn’t want to listen. He bought the gun. It belongs to him. Nobody went into the complex. Nobody came out. He was all by himself. And it’s a suicide. And how long it took? Can you believe it? 40 minutes to investigate. 40 minutes to determine the cause of death. And at four o’clock, they give me the keys for the apartment and they say you can collect the body tomorrow.

Right from that moment, I see foul play. Proper formalities were not followed. And the next day they released the body within 24 hours without doing the complete autopsy. They removed the bullet. They did the CT scan, just returned the body to us.

Then we just checked with the funeral home and we discussed with them. And then they also said, looks like doesn’t seem normal. There’s something very unusual here. You should do a second private autopsy.

TUCKER CARLSON: The funeral home suggested that?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes. And even we were thinking — both of us were also thinking, funeral home also suggested we were shattered. Obviously, right? We were completely shattered. We just didn’t know what’s going on and seeing a son like that. And they said, like, his eyes are gone with a gun wound. Don’t see his face. We couldn’t see him.

TUCKER CARLSON: But the fact that the funeral home, which, of course, sees dead bodies every day, said to you, this doesn’t look right. Doesn’t look like a suicide. We recommend that you get a second autopsy, a real autopsy. That’s amazing.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Actually, the way they didn’t look at the body, they didn’t look at any evidence. But the way the information was given to us and the way the procedures and policies need to be followed and norms were not followed, according to them. Before they received the body itself, they said, this doesn’t look normal. And we addressed the concern that it could be some foul play here. And we knew from the very moment we heard the news, we know it’s not suicide.

Next day in the death news and I’m shattered by calling police, calling medical examiner, coroner’s office, homicide unit. We’ve done everything we can.

Investigating the Apartment and Surrounding Area

TUCKER CARLSON: So tell me what you know about what’s been proven from the CCTV, from the surveillance footage about your son’s last moments. Is there any evidence anyone came in or out of the apartment?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No. Actually, even when our attorney concluded it’s a suicide, even at that moment, I mentioned to the attorney, “Look, there are three entrances to this building. One of them is gated. It has CCTV. Other two entrances don’t have CCTV. And why are we ignoring that? Nobody came in, nobody went out.”

And also what we just recently discovered, his packages are missing. His roommate — no, his neighbor in the apartment complex, he mentioned that they have a shared package room. They have a shared bin or basket or something. He’s seen Suchir’s package until December 31st. He reached out to me through Twitter on X platform. When I tweeted, he found out on Suchir’s mom and he said, “Have you picked up Suchir’s packages? I don’t see that after January 1st.” Those packages are missing.

When we talked to that neighbor, he said, like, it’s very common that packages get lost. In September, they received a notification that if you see so-and-so man, then let us know. And that tells us a lot about the security. And, you know, like, there’s a compromise of key. There’s a compromise of entrance. All of these need to be investigated, obviously, when there is a murder.

The Independent Forensic Report

TUCKER CARLSON: So let’s get to the reason that I am anxious to do this interview, which is this report that you commissioned, Dr. Dinesh Rao, and it contains his analysis of the condition of your son’s body based on an autopsy, I believe, and it critically contains seven crime scene photographs that you took in your son’s apartment. Is that correct?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: That’s right.

Evidence at the Crime Scene

POORNIMA RAMARAO: They have evidence that was very critical, which has not been picked up by the authorities. Within 40 minutes, they concluded they haven’t even picked up critical things like a bag with blood that has my son’s saliva in it. They haven’t picked that up. And how could they miss haze falling all over from the wig?

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. So that’s what I want to get to. So the two things that jump out to me, the first thing that jumps out, and it’s very obvious from the photographs that you took, is that there’s blood all over the apartment. So the official explanation is that your son shot him. And I’m sorry, I know this is hard. But I think it’s important to go through this. The official explanation is your son shot himself once in the head and the bullet enter the brainstem and extinguish life immediately.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Can I say something?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: It didn’t touch his brainstem at all. It didn’t even touch his brain. And the angle is downwards.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes. I’m saying the official explanation is he shot himself once in the head. He died.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: But these photographs show that that’s not at all what happened because there’s blood all over the apartment. There’s blood on the door, on the floor, in the bathroom. There’s blood everywhere. So that right there, just employing common sense, tells you that the person from whom that blood came, your son, presumably, did not have a fatal brain injury, at least when he was bleeding. I mean, this is something was going on in the apartment.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: The second thing that jumps out is that there is a tuft of hair. That’s not hair. It’s from a wig.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: It’s from a wig. And there’s a clip seen.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s OK. So tell us what that is for people who don’t know. It’s a part of the clip in wig.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Like there’s some kind of plastic band or something that fits the wig on the head. We can see that coming out behind the door.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: And that’s obvious evidence that no crime scene investigators or police can miss. They just ignored everything that showed murder. And they picked up everything that showed a cover-up suicide.

TUCKER CARLSON: But how could they ignore? So your son did not. I mean, he was a 26-year-old man with short hair from pictures. He’s not wearing a wig, correct?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No, no, no. He is not. These hairs are not his. This investigator’s analysis looked at the hair from the autopsy pictures that my son’s hair. And this hair, this is not his hair.

TUCKER CARLSON: And the portion of the wig, the clip in wig, has blood on it.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: OK. So as a non-forensic investigator myself, I look at that and I’m saying, where did this come from? And there’s blood all over the apartment. Right there, I would say this is, you know, maybe it’s a suicide, but you’re going to have to tell me how? Because that, you know, what is that?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: It’s not a suicide. It’s a homicide, obviously. We have enough reasons to believe that. One is coming from the private autopsy. It’s not a suicidal angle at all.

The Autopsy Findings

TUCKER CARLSON: So you said that. And let me let you explain. It’s not a suicidal angle. So you had the crime scene. Your son’s body was taken away. It was evaluated in some way by the authorities. They say this is a suicide. You have like a real autopsy done by Professor Rao. And he says, what about the bullet angle? Will you explain that?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: The autopsy was done by Dr. Joseph Cohen.

TUCKER CARLSON: OK.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: And he says two things. One of them is the bullet angle is going downward, about 30 to 45 degrees downward. It’s been shot here. It’s missed the brain. Second thing is there’s a head injury on the left side of the head. In fact, I spoke to medical examiner’s office executive director. I told him there’s a head injury, the sign of struggle in the bathroom. He just declared that I’m the decision making authority of state of California. I decide the cause of death. And when I brought up, we’ll have federal investigation. There was a momentary setback in his voice on the phone. But still, they’re holding on to suicide.

TUCKER CARLSON: So Dr. Cohen’s autopsy, and this is grisly, I’m sorry, but shows, demonstrates, proves that the bullet was fired at what angle?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah, it’s downward angle. That someone cannot shoot themselves.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. So in other words, if this were a suicide, your son would have had to have held the gun to his forehead coming down.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: From the top. He was made to sit. If you look at the same thing, the victim was sitting down. He was made to sit. Someone standing, he shot him down. In fact, like Balaji and I, my husband and I are going to create a virtual reality. Once we get all the evidence, we’ll create a virtual reality video and present it to court what exactly happened to him on that moment.

TUCKER CARLSON: You also said, if I heard you correctly, that he had another head injury not caused by a bullet.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: Can you tell us about that?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Actually, it appeared to us that from his fallen toothpick and blood in the sink and all that, it appeared around 10-ish. Because 10:10 is his last browser history on the desktop. He was brushing his teeth before going to bed. He was attacked from behind on the head. That’s where this fallen dustbin, this fallen toothpick and his ear bud has fallen in two different directions because of the head impact. And we believe after that he was either electrocuted or he was paralyzed from the head injury. And then they just held him up, made him sit and shot him.

But also, we know that we’re waiting for further report, but that may not be the cause of death. The gunshot wound is not the cause of death. And probably they might have suffocated him. We don’t have any details of that cruelty. But we’re waiting for further reports from CT scan.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why do you believe the gunshot was not the cause of death?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Because it’s not touched the brain. It only makes him unconscious.

TUCKER CARLSON: So, the autopsy showed that the bullet did not touch his brain.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes, and also since I called the apartment on 23rd at 12:15 p.m., it rang once and it went to voicemail. That makes me believe the killers were still there in the apartment. Again, we need to verify all that. We can do something called geofencing. Through that, we can figure out who was there, who was visiting that complex and all that information. That’s exactly why we need thorough investigation.

Suchir’s Last Online Activity

TUCKER CARLSON: You certainly do. You said your son’s last browser record is from 10 p.m. ish?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: 10 p.m.

TUCKER CARLSON: And what was he looking at?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: I think he was looking at a black cat or something. Because last time in Suchir and I met, a cat was going in front of me. And then I told him it’s a superstition. And then he was looking at neuroscience topics. And he logged into a website for the startup or something like that. He logged into a website and he was doing some research.

TUCKER CARLSON: So he wasn’t looking up, how do I kill myself?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No. That’s the first thing that we look for, actually.

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course. Of course. Of course. I mean, killing yourself is a profound decision. People, there are signs.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: And can I say something? It doesn’t add up. If he’s so brave to go to news media, to be a witness, he’s so courageous. How does someone so courageous do a cowardly act? It doesn’t add up at all.

TUCKER CARLSON: What doesn’t add up is there’s blood all over the apartment. And there’s a piece of a wig on the ground covered in blood. That’s not his wig. And, you know, you don’t need to be a detective to imagine that if someone’s going to commit a murder, he might be wearing a wig as he goes into the apartment. So that right there, considering your son didn’t wear a wig as a 26-year-old male.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: These were not his. That’s also another thing.

TUCKER CARLSON: What weren’t his?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Those hairs were not his hair. We have the picture of his hair. His hair has fallen down in the bathroom sink. That is different from the wig and the hair in the wig. His original hair had been found on the floor. They might have strangled him by his hair or something. His hair has fallen down. That hair versus the wig hair are different.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did anybody hear anything in the apartment? Did anyone hear the gunshot?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No.

TUCKER CARLSON: No one heard anything?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No one heard anything.

TUCKER CARLSON: And two entrances into the complex have no surveillance cameras.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wow. It makes the hair on your arms go up.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah, it’s a lot.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Again, I’ve been involved in many stories like this, more than five, and I’ve never seen one like this. It’s brutal. It’s unbelievable. So what’s unbelievable is it’s so obviously not a clean-cut story. I mean, you wouldn’t walk into an apartment with blood splattered everywhere and see a man on the floor with a gun in his hand and say, oh, it was a suicide. Well, how did the blood get in the bathroom? He shot himself in the head. Like, that doesn’t even make sense.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: It was a cover-up, right? So they picked up what they want to pick up. We don’t know if they have been instructed to do that beforehand.

Authorities’ Response

TUCKER CARLSON: So, okay. Thank you for describing all that, and I’m sorry. I know it’s awful.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: But tell me how the authorities responded, if you don’t mind.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Authorities have been very indifferent. In fact, we hired an attorney, a senior attorney. He wrote to chief of police, city administrator, chief medical examiner, executive director of medical examiner. He wrote very clearly a couple of points. One of them is he was not suicidal. Before making a decision of suicide, they need to take his mental state into account.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: He has happy pictures. They shared the pictures. He just came back and he said, talk to four of his friends who accompanied him. And he also said autopsy information in that letter. The autopsy report says that this is the angle of gunshot. It doesn’t look suicide at all. A doctor described this as atypical, abnormal, worrisome angle. We wrote all of this to them. We just had them to reconsider it and do the investigation. Chief of police apparently has agreed to do investigation, but medical examiner stopped it. He said, no, this is suicide. And the attorney came back and said what they said was, oh, yeah, the angle looks different. So what? It’s a suicide.

TUCKER CARLSON: A man shooting himself in the forehead from a downward angle. Okay. I’m not even sure if that’s possible, but —

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah. we are going to demonstrate that. We just ordered a dummy gun. We’re going to create a dummy of his size and we’re going to demonstrate using the VR or the video. We’re going to demonstrate to people it’s not possible.

TUCKER CARLSON: Who is the medical examiner who refuses to reconsider a pretty obviously silly explanation for this?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: His name is David Hellman.

TUCKER CARLSON: David Hellman is the San Francisco medical examiner.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: But he has been covered by David Sewell, who’s the executive director. Every time we call, it’s him. And even the news report is given by David Sewell. There’s no fault.

TUCKER CARLSON: And who is David Sewell?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: He’s the executive director of medical examiner’s office. He is the one who’s holding on to suicide. In spite of seeing all the evidences, he wants to declare it only suicide, nothing else.

TUCKER CARLSON: What does he make of the bloody wig and the blood splattered in the bathroom when your son was not found in the bathroom? Like, how does he explain that?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: He didn’t want to listen to it. He didn’t want to pay attention to any of the things that we were saying. And you know, the worst struggle here is the first attorney. He was reluctant to help us.

Legal Challenges and Investigations

POORNIMA RAMARAO: When medical examiner’s office said suicide, he didn’t want to fight because they have been threatened, obviously. And we hired a second attorney. He got a crime scene investigator. And our attorney said, we’ll give you explanation of every blood mark. And he came back this Monday and he gave explanation. And none of that explanation he gave corroborates to what happened in the apartment based on what we see. That means even the crime scene investigator was bought. He gave inaccurate results.

If both the attorneys are like this, then where do we go? We definitely need some serious help here from the authorities.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay, so the authorities would begin with the mayor of San Francisco?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Mayor of San Francisco. Actually, Sam Altman is on the transition committee for the new governor.

TUCKER CARLSON: The new mayor. The new mayor. Sam Altman is a friend of the new mayor. Okay, so let’s move up. Then you go to the governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We’re trying to. We are first trying to meet the district attorney of San Francisco, DA of San Francisco. We probably are going to get an appointment sometime next week or later this week.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s mid-January. Your son was killed in November.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We have not been getting any appointment. We wrote to everyone. We wrote to Rob Bonta. We wrote to DA. We didn’t get any appointment from any of them. Five weeks were wasted by our first attorney. He does nothing. He just keeps prolonging, prolonging, prolonging. He wasted five weeks.

Then we hired a second attorney. It’s been almost two weeks since we hired. But now, we just didn’t trust any of these people. We got a report from someone else. And now we’re coming to media because these people, neither the authorities nor the attorneys are helping us.

TUCKER CARLSON: This needs to go to the Department of Justice, I think, in the Trump administration.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: I did write.

TUCKER CARLSON: You did?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah. We haven’t heard yet because it’s only been a few days. We did write to them.

Authorities’ Response to the Case

TUCKER CARLSON: Has anybody in a position of authority in the state of California said to you, “Boy, this needs more investigation. It doesn’t look right.”

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Everybody is suppressed. No one has come in our favor. In fact, even our attorneys whom we hired have been made to tell us it’s a suicide to us. Every day, from every different angle, there is a push for us that it’s a suicide. But we parents, we know, and we want to fight for justice for our beloved son.

TUCKER CARLSON: But I don’t understand on what basis. So your son had just come back that day from hanging out with his buddies, which is like a happy thing. No evidence that he was suicidal whatsoever. And tons of forensic evidence that he was murdered. So on what grounds are they saying it’s very likely he killed himself?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Okay, that’s because of the cover-up. Remember, there was a gun near him. He owned a gun. And they put a shell casing and four bullets near it. They made it look like it. So there are both the evidences, right, for the medical examiner to pick up. He picked up the one that looks suicidal. He ignored the one that looks like homicide. That’s what it is.

Interactions with OpenAI and Sam Altman

TUCKER CARLSON: So now to Sam Altman. What contact with Sam Altman have you had since your son died?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We contacted HR for 401k plan details. Until then, no one from OpenAI ever contacted us. They gave the PR report that they’re supporting the family. How? Suchir obviously put parents in his emergency contact, right? They got the death news on December 13th. They made no attempt to contact us.

And when we reached out to HR, Sam Altman said he wants to talk to us. By then we already knew Suchir was, you know, his presence or his living would have been a threat to AI industry in general. I wouldn’t want to name one company. But eventually it’s going to expose everything, right?

So we didn’t want to talk to Sam Altman. And then they said we provide employee assistance program. Though he was a former employee. They said we have medical insurance. We don’t need it. Then they pushed us saying we want to get you on a Zoom call ASAP to go over his stock options. Then our response to that is why are you in a hurry? We’re not. We’ve lost our son. We’re grieving. Money is not important to us. Please talk to a probate attorney.

TUCKER CARLSON: They wanted to talk about his stock options?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah, that’s where they wanted to get us on a Zoom call.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you think, do you believe, you can’t know, I guess, but do you think that Sam Altman was involved in your son’s death?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We don’t know. We need to investigate it. We can’t, you know, we can’t say anything at this time. But one thing I know for sure is if he was deposed, there are a few organizations who could have been impacted. For that matter, like there are a lot of AI companies which violate copyright law. And we don’t know what OpenAI wanted to hide when my son deposed. What was the wrongdoing that he would have brought up? Not just the copyright law.

That’s exactly we need FBI to investigate thoroughly. Was there any criminal activity? Was there any illegal activity? We don’t know, right? Why? Why would they silence him? What would he have spoken? If it’s just the copyright law, do you think these big organizations like Microsoft and OpenAI care? No, they don’t care about it, right? Because they have money and power. What else was involved in the deposition, in the testimony that took my son’s life? We need thorough investigation.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you haven’t seen those documents? You don’t know?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Okay, there are two things here. One is the custodial documentation, right? The second thing is his own statement. His own statement we heard from few former employees of OpenAI. There are certain wrongdoings there.

TUCKER CARLSON: Like what?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We can’t say something that someone shared, right? So I would want to keep it more, you know, just overview that something like that. So that is the reason they’re hiding. And you know what? If we come and tell openly, our life could be at risk. But we are taking the risk and coming out and telling publicly. That’s the reason our son was killed, because he knew something that was going on. Keeping in mind, he was feeding the data, right? Pre-training data.

TUCKER CARLSON: So to be clear, you think this is not simply about OpenAI stealing, you know, copyrighted material? There’s more than that?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: There’s more than that. 100% sure. Because copyright data, obviously, my friends and I were all talking. These companies, they get many lawsuits like this, right? Do they really care about it? No.

TUCKER CARLSON: What is the kind of thing they do care about? What kind of crimes do you think they would kill someone over?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Stealing some data that could cause a violation, possibly. They might be stealing some data.

TUCKER CARLSON: From the US government, from other governments?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Something like that. Maybe government is involved. We don’t know. We’re speculating.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s just a remarkable story. Do you think that we will find out? Like, how will the rest of us find out what your son testified to?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: That’s exactly why we call out to President Trump to do a thorough investigation. We want an FBI director to be assigned to investigate this. This is not just about copyright. This is about a lot of other things that are going on that could cause harm to society, potentially. Not just my son’s death. There’s something harmful that needs to be evaluated and thoroughly investigated.

That’s exactly why they’re covering up a suicide. Why do you think medical examiners, the executive director, would come and tell? Why do you think nobody gives us appointments? Because there’s some kind of foul play and there’s strong power behind a medical examiner.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you’re saying that AI itself poses a threat to the world and that your son understood this?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes, he understood it. But he was keeping in mind that’s one aspect. The other aspect is he knew everything OpenAI does. And he might have actually felt overwhelmed by what kind of activity he got involved in. We know that he spoke to a copyright attorney, which is again a cover-up, we suspect. And what Matthew Butterick told us on November 29th is, “Yes, I met with your son. He’s a very brave man.”

So Chief told us what OpenAI did to him. He didn’t say anything beyond that. I live in San Francisco, LA. I come to San Francisco quite a few times. And I’m going to talk to you next time when I come. And then he’s been silent. He’s not telling us anything. We had an attorney call. Even then, apparently, he did not say. So if we depose him, he’s going to spill out everything. And also we suspect he’s Sam Altman’s friend. And he’s played against our son and has indirect involvement. We don’t know.

Sam Altman’s Departure and Return to OpenAI

TUCKER CARLSON: Wow. There was a moment where Sam Altman left his own company, or seemed to leave his own company for a few days. You may remember this. What was that? Do you know?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Sam Altman was fired. This was because of AI safety issues. The board of directors for OpenAI from the nonprofit side, especially one called Ilya Sutskever, he and others, excuse me, fired Sam Altman. And then all the 700 employees, including my son, wrote a letter or a momentum saying that if they don’t reinstate Sam Altman, they’re all going to resign. So they brought Sam Altman. They fired Ilya, who’s AI safety expert.

And to be honest, a few days after my son’s death was announced, December 15, Ilya was seen in a presentation in one of the conferences. He had two security guards with firearms around him. He was so scared of his life. So we are seeing a mafia behind all this, honestly speaking.

TUCKER CARLSON: What were the safety issues that caused Sam Altman to get fired, do you think?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We don’t know if it’s a safety issue or whatever. We don’t have the details of it. Even my son doesn’t know any of these things. In fact, he supported Sam Altman’s reinstatement.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, you said that.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah, yeah. A lot of AI safety people have been leaving OpenAI. If you notice their CTO, Mira, I don’t know her last name. The CTO also resigned. Many people have been leaving OpenAI, not just the researchers.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why?

Concerns about OpenAI and AI Industry

POORNIMA RAMARAO: That’s exactly I want to know why. There’s so many people to leave, obviously. There is something, right, that they’re not happy about, right? Only person who spoke against them was my son. The rest of them just quietly walked away. My son, he couldn’t take it. He felt like, you know, he needs to stand up and tell the truth so some harm can be prevented. We need to investigate all this seriously.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did your son ever mention — during that period when Sam Altman left, that very brief period, there was a report in the news media that said within OpenAI, AI itself was being worshipped like a god. Did he ever mention anything about that?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No, he didn’t. He didn’t mention.

TUCKER CARLSON: And do you have any sense of what these harms are? I mean, clearly people are afraid of what AI can do, not just by eliminating jobs, which is enough to worry about, but there are other things that people are very concerned about. Do you know what they are?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: They are in my son’s publication. Some of them he’s covered. One of them is like less traffic, means the loss of jobs. That was one of his concerns. I’m proud of him for bringing that up. He gave the graph, graphical representation of how the traffic is reduced to Stack Overflow and few other websites that are a means of living for people. That will be taken away. That’s his concern. And also the accuracy, as I mentioned earlier in the interview, the accuracy of data.

And also he says something called like the modulation index or something, 0.5 versus 1.0. He tells in his article, if it’s 0.5, the data in and data out are not the same. If it’s 1, data in and data out are same. Most companies, including OpenAI, use 0.5. That means the data accuracy is not maintained. That is his biggest concern. He being kind of like an architect inside, he knows in and out of ChatGPT.

TUCKER CARLSON: What happens next?

Suchir’s Plans and Family’s Pursuit of Justice

POORNIMA RAMARAO: If my son were alive, he was planning to bring a competition to OpenAI. He was working on a medical startup. I even checked with him. How do you think it’s a competition? Not directly. Mom, he said indirect competition. He said he would have been a great humanitarian. He would have done a lot of causes for humanity with the concerns he had.

We lost a great human being, not just my son, who would have made a big difference to the world. Now, what we want is we want justice. We want death sentence to the one who killed my son, as well as the imprisonment for people who are behind it. We don’t know who it is, but we want to know. And we want to know what my son stood against and take actions, at least in honor of him. At least do something that he stood for and, you know, let his soul be at peace.

Evidence in the Apartment

TUCKER CARLSON: What happened to the piece of wig found on the floor soaked in blood in your son’s apartment? Where is it?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: It’s still there. We didn’t pick it up because we want police to go and look at it.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s in the apartment right now?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Nobody came to do the investigation. We have the apartment keys. Nobody came to do the investigation.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s sitting there right now?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah. Still there. We didn’t pick up anything because it’s crime scene evidence.

TUCKER CARLSON: But no one’s investigating it as a crime scene.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: No. In fact, like our attorney said up to December 31st, these people will retain the apartment. In fact, we are paying the rent and we are maintaining the apartment as is because we want someone to come and investigate all these things with so much evidence. If medical examiner still calls it suicide, this is an ethical question, the regulatory question.

TUCKER CARLSON: So it’s just sitting on the floor right now?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes. It’s the same place. We didn’t touch any of that.

TUCKER CARLSON: This is a really crazy story.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: It is. Reality, right? It’s not a story. It’s how gruesome it is. And like you see all the bloodshot, like there was a fight and my son has been tortured. He didn’t die immediately. And where can we go with various piece of mind for us? We can’t. We just don’t have any piece of mind. Our life is not normal at all. The only thing that could make a difference after the loss of our son is get him justice. Punish the wrongdoers. Protect AI.

Seeking Federal Investigation

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you know that California was this corrupt?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yeah, we know it’s very corrupt. That’s exactly why we’re requesting FBI thorough investigation. We did speak to an agent, I think last Friday. We’re waiting for that agent to get someone assigned if we know special agent or something. And we also know that there’s a transition period in the government. Some may be moved, transferred, some may be leaving. So we just thought, OK, let’s wait. Meanwhile, we did all the groundwork that we need to do. We have the evidence. We are here in the media. We’re telling the media, now we want a new oncoming federal government to intervene because Newsom we know. Trump himself makes a lot of statements against Newsom. We wrote to Ro Khanna.

TUCKER CARLSON: You talked to Ro Khanna, congressman from Silicon Valley?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We wrote to him. No response from him.

TUCKER CARLSON: No response from Ro Khanna?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Yes. Many people tried to reach out to him. Not one. Many people. No response from him. Because they’re all inside, right? All this tech lobbying.

[Tucker Carlson mentions texting Ro Khanna]

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We don’t believe in state government at all. We know how corrupt it is, especially in San Francisco Bay Area. It’s very, very corrupt. We don’t believe in the system. Unless, you know, we change the governor. We won’t believe anything will happen here. We need to go to federal. And we also found out that he’s protected the whistleblower act as well.

TUCKER CARLSON: I am sorry?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Whistleblower. There’s a federal aspect as well. He’s a whistleblower.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Right. There are two things here. One is wrongful death. He’s a whistleblower. The whistleblower comes under federal because the lawsuit was filed in New York and he was a custodian witness. So we have a backing from federal government involvement. If it’s just the state, corrupt state would fight against it. Since it is federal, they can overtake the federal aspect.

We are writing to Federal Trade Commission now, today or tomorrow. And we want them to do a quiet investigation of the case. We have a top attorney in whistleblowers that’s helping us. Pro Bono means contingency basis. We will work with him and bring the truth out.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, your son was born in this country. You can’t murder American citizens because they’re standing in the way of your business. That is not allowed in this country. You can’t do that.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Imagine we are immigrants here and we came here. We raised our son. We were so proud of him. We don’t expect this to happen in this country, in America.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, that’s right.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We don’t expect this to happen. That sense of security has been lost for me ever since.

Safety Concerns and Media Response

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you worry about your safety?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Potentially, now that we’ve gone so public, they may not target us. But there might be some kind of threat in terms of accidents or something like that. Potentially, indirectly, they could harm us that they cannot be caught. We suspect that. And I don’t go out alone anywhere because I’m more vocal. So I don’t go out alone for walk or anywhere. I always take my husband along. And we make sure if we go somewhere, we inform our friends where we are. We just keep letting people know. In fact, I don’t want my family from India to visit me because it’s a big risk for them.

TUCKER CARLSON: Has the New York Times called you to do this story?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We called New York Times two days after we got his body. And we told, I think his name was, I don’t remember his name. So we told him many times. They haven’t even interviewed. They ignored it completely. And he said he’ll get back. He will say, he’ll let us know what he can do. And he doesn’t even take our call.

TUCKER CARLSON: What about the television networks, CNN, NBC, Fox, anyone?

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Nobody. ABC just relayed the vigil, candlelight vigil that we had for Suchir and Milpitas. 1.5 minutes they relayed of the vigil information, ABC News. Now that we just received this evidence today morning, we probably might reach out to some of the news media. Now that we have this evidence, news media will talk to us. We want to take it much forward.

Protecting Evidence and Whistleblowers

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I don’t. For the third time, I just want to say this again. I don’t think anybody, any honest person could look at this and say, oh, yeah, that’s a suicide.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: I mean, I just, you know, we were hesitant because like they can try to manipulate the evidence or something like that. We were very hesitant. You know, like they can even attack the apartment, remove everything, clean up, you know, like something crazy things like they might call the police. Like something crazy things like they might cause a fire and then let the, you know, water sprinklers go on and it will destroy the evidence or something. Right. That’s why we were very quiet. We didn’t go to media until we got this authoritative report. It’s very scary.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I’m grateful that you’re making, you know, as much noise about this as you are and you’re as aggressive as you are. Thank you for doing that.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Whistleblowers lives matter. We cannot lose. Honestly, I was talking to my son. I expressed concerns about his whistleblower activity. But what I was thinking was he won’t get another job because he’s going against employer. Right. He kept assuring me he has his own startup plans. But taking his life is something that I never expected. This is not the first time. Two whistleblowers from Boeing were found dead last year. One of them exactly same way. Another one died in the hospital. They drugged him. This is America.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Thank you for this.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: We need to protect them. Most whistleblowers, we were talking to the whistleblower attorneys. Most of them, they don’t even know there is support. There’s not enough awareness. Going forward, we want to create awareness and help others. Not just that. There should be some kind of regulation protection. And I’m sure we’re going to talk to New York Times at some point of time and said, how did you put his life at risk? If he was a custodian witness, why didn’t you give him protection? Why was he left alone? Right. What kind of protection did he have for speaking truth? Costing his life.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I think most Americans like you would not even consider the possibility you’d be murdered over something like this. You know, the penalty you would assume would be, you know, having trouble getting another job. But getting killed in your apartment. And your son, I know I’ve asked this. I want to make totally clear. He never mentioned being followed or feeling threatened or anything like that.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Actually, I do have some observation. After New York Times article came, he didn’t want us to visit. He would come home and avoid me going there. And he would also come during the weekday, not the weekend. I want to investigate why. Was he already under some kind of someone was following him or something? I was about to demand him an answer, but he’s no more. Like slowly, you know, like with an adult son, like how much can we push him each time he visits? I just made sure like he’s eating well and he’s healthy and he has strong plans. He has hobbies, all of those things. But this kind of information, why are you coming in the weekdays? I didn’t get a chance to push him. He was going to come for Thanksgiving. And that’s when I would question him. I thought. He wasn’t even alive till then. We didn’t have enough time.

Call for Action and Justice

TUCKER CARLSON: Thank you for telling us this story.

POORNIMA RAMARAO: Thank you for hosting us. You know, we want Americans to know what happened. And why has the mean covered by news media? Why no one is talking about it? Why they want to repeat like parrots? What medical examiner is saying? Why they don’t want to stand up for truth? Why? Are they so sold out for these tech lobbying? Is there any regulation on the amount of money they can spend for lobbying? Right. It’s indirect bribe. Right. So they’re all sold out. Can’t we do anything? I’m an American citizen too. This is totally disappointing.

A reporter came home. He took the pictures. He wrote the article. And when I mentioned OpenAI’s name, there was so much fear in him. He was scared. So the tech companies, they’re controlling and they’re turning out to be mafia. Controlling the government. Controlling the news media. What more harm do we want from them? Do we public? Do we need to live in safety? Or do we need to live in fear? What are we doing? Why are we quiet now?

Now that an innocent life is gone, we’re seeing so much going on. Why are we quiet? Why can’t we start Justice for Suchir movement? Why can’t we do rallies? Why can’t we go on a nonstop movement until we get the justice? Until we get the punishment? I’m calling out to all Americans to stand with me. We want to do rallies all over America. We want to do vigil all over America. And we want to enforce FBI investigation and punish the culprit.

TUCKER CARLSON: I hope this helps. And that is totally wrong. It’s immoral. What can you do about it? Well, we could whine about it. That’s a waste of time. We’re not in charge of Google. Or we could find a way around it. A way that you could actually get information that is true, not intentionally deceptive. The way to do that on YouTube, we think, is to subscribe to our channel. Subscribe. Hit the little bell icon to be notified when we upload and share this video. That way you’ll have a much higher chance of hearing actual news and information. So we hope that you’ll do that.

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