On March 9, 2024, Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in his car. Reports suggested suicide, but his lawyers and family attested to his “good spirits” sparking a debate regarding the suspicious nature of his death.
In a similar turn of events, on Nov. 26, 2024, OpenAI researcher-turned-whistleblower Suchir Balaji was found dead in his apartment. While reports suggested suicide and the police found no signs of foul play, the BBC suggests that there may have been more involvement from his former company.
Both Barnett and Balaji had spoken out against their prior employers. Barnett was a long-time employee of Boeing, providing 32 years of service, spending his last seven as a quality manager. He was also actively involved in a lawsuit against the company claiming they cut corners while creating their 777 and 787 Dreamliner jets that could result in large civilian casualties. After not attending a portion of the hearing, police investigated his whereabouts and found his body.
He was found with a gun in his hand and a notebook with a suicide note expressing his love for his family, his stress and hopes that Boeing will be punished for their crimes. Ballistic reports confirmed that the bullet was from a gun that he was holding, however, lawyers and his family were still suspicious due to the active lawsuit and mistreatment in the past. One of Barnett’s brothers expressed that after reporting the company to Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Barnett faced workplace harassment via embarrassment.
Two months after Barnett’s death, another Boeing whistleblower, Joshua Dean, died of a “fasting-moving mysterious illness.” Following his death, Boeing is facing 10 more whistleblowers exposing the safety concerns for the new jets that are being manufactured. Additionally, in the midst of these two deaths, CEO Dave Calhoun has announced his step down in an abrupt manner, as described by New York Post.
The 10 whistleblowers that have come to light are involved in the ongoing lawsuit against Boeing. A lawyer that represented both Barnett and Dean expressed that “these men were heroes. So are all the whistleblowers. They loved the company and wanted to help the company do better” to the New York Post.

Courtesy of BBC
Balaji was a 26-year-old researcher for OpenAI. In the months leading up to his death, he was speaking publicly about the malpractice as the company was facing multiple lawsuits. In an interview with the New York Times, Balaji concluded that “OpenAI’s use of copyrighted data to build ChatGPT violated the law and that technologies like ChatGPT were damaging the internet.”
After the reports suggest suicide, Balaji’s mother, Poornima Rao, went to X and expressed that her son’s death was “a cold blooded mu*d*r” and demanded the Federal Bureau of Investigation get involved. She tagged Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michelle Smith. After the post gained attention, Musk commented on her post expressing, “This doesn’t seem like a suicide.”
Balaji’s parents believe that the scene does not look as if he struggled. They visited Balaji’s apartment with George Webb, an investigative journalist, and the video was posted to X. In the video, Rao stated that “they are not giving the police report, they’re not us giving the original autopsy. They’re hiding the head injury, in spite of us showing them the pictures of the blood shot from the bathroom, the authorities are not taking this into account. We have an autopsy report that doesn’t confirm suicide at all, its anti-suicidal.”