Tucker Carlson published a new interview with Openai CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday , in which the two men discussed some pretty dark topics. Altman also spoke about his beef with Elon Musk, and it didn’t take long for the Tesla CEO to chime in with his thoughts on X, ultimately claiming that a tweet claiming that an Openai “murdered” whistleblower “was murdered” was posted on Thursday in the District .
During the episode, Carlson and Altman talk about Openai researcher Sanirir Balaji, who died on November 26, 2024. Balaji had accused Openai of violating U.S. copyright law a few weeks before his death. And while it was ruled a suicide , his mother said he was murdered.
He was murdered.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 11, 2025
Carlson had Balaji’s mother, Poornima Ramarao, on his podcast Back in January and insisted that the 26-year-old whistleblower was murdered during a conversation with Altman.
“So you’ve had complaints from one programmer who said you guys were basically stealing people’s stuff and not paying them. And then he ended up getting murdered. What was that?” Carlson said.
“Also a great tragedy, he committed suicide,” Altman said.
Carlson pressed Altman, asking if he really thought Balaji was killing himself. Altman replied, “I really do.”
“It was like a friend of mine, it was like a guy who – not a close friend, but it was someone who worked for Openai for a very long time,” Altman continued. “I spent… I think I was really shaken by this tragedy. I spent a lot of time trying to read everything I could, as I’m sure you and others did about what happened. It looks like suicide to me.”
“Why does it look like suicide?” Carlson asked.
“It was a gun that he had purchased. It was — this is like a horrible thing to say, but I read the whole medical record. Doesn’t it look like it to you?” Altman said.
Carlson said he definitely thinks it was a murder, saying there were signs of a struggle, “the surveillance wires were cut,” among other evidence he said proved foul play. Carlson also told Altman that Balaji’s mother “believes he was murdered on your orders.”
Altman asked Carlson if he believed that, and Carlson tried to evade answers before saying, “I think it’s worth investigating.” Carlson insisted, “I’m not insulting you at all,” after Altman started to say something about the defendant and was cut off.
“You understand how this sounds like an accusation…” Altman says.
“Sure. And I, I mean, I definitely… let me just be clear again, not accusing you of any wrongdoing, but I think it’s worth investigating what happened,” Carlson replied. “And I don’t understand why the city of San Francisco has refused to investigate it, just calling it a suicide.”
Altman said that “his memory and his family deserve to be treated with a level of respect and grief that I don’t feel here.” Carlson shot back that he was asking for his family’s request.
Carlson tried to address Elon Musk and his attacks on Altman, asking what the “core” of their feud might be. Altman talked about how grateful he was to Musk for helping him start Openai. The two men were co-founders before Musk was ousted from the organization.
“There are things about him that are incredible, and I’m grateful for a lot of the things he’s done. There are a lot of things about him that I think are traits that I don’t admire,” Altman said.
As Altman says, Musk has been trying to “slow us down” ever since he was ousted, filing lawsuits and claiming that Openai betrayed its original mission.
When they weren’t talking about Musk, suicide, and murder, things still got really heavy. Carlson spent much of the interview intentionally raising the stakes of AI, or genuinely fearing what it was capable of.
“It doesn’t seem quite like a machine. It seems to have a spark of life in it,” Carlson asked, claiming that it has some kind of “autonomy or spirit in it.”
Carlson repeatedly asked Altman about his religious beliefs. Altman said he was Jewish, which wasn’t enough for Carlson, who continued to probe whether he believed in God.
“I ask because it seems like the technology you are building or shepherding will have more power than people… on this current trajectory,” Carlson said.
Former Fox News host Badger Altman on where he gets his “moral framework,” if not from a higher power.
“I think, like everyone else, I think the environment I was raised in is probably the biggest thing. Like my family, my community, my school, my religion, probably that,” Altman said.
It’s actually a bit disturbing that Altman agreed to do this interview, given the way Carlson discusses AI and tech leaders on his show. Carlson often talks about them as godless freaks trying to build their own God in a machine. And Altman sometimes seemed to be asking questions about topics like suicide, where Carlson clearly tried to portray Altman as cold and out of touch with the morality of everyday people.
“The beauty of religion is that it recognizes that it’s a religion, and it tells you what it stands for,” Carlson told Altman. “The independent part of this technology — not just your company, but others — that I don’t know what it stands for, but it stands for something. And unless it recognizes that, and tells us what it stands for, then it leads us in a kind of secret way to conclusions that we don’t even know we’re reaching for.”
