OpenAI PR cuts off reporter's question about user's suicide
What happened
On 6 October 2026, The Verge reported that Vanity Fair editor Mark Guiducci, while interviewing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, asked whether he knew about journalist Laura Reiley, who wrote in The New York Times about her daughter's suicide after a conversation with ChatGPT. OpenAI PR immediately asked to "change the subject", citing a lack of interview time, and cut off the question. The current state of the matter is that PR stopped the topic on the spot, with no further response from OpenAI or Altman.
Written by AI from the reports · updated 11 d ago
Timeline
Follow the reports to see the event from each side.
- The Verge · AIOpenAI PR tells journalist to ‘move on’ while asking Sam Altman about a ChatGPT user’s suicide
An OpenAI publicist tried to change the topic of CEO Sam Altman's interview with Vanity Fair's Mark Guiducci after the editor brought up a ChatGPT user's suicide. When Guiducci confronted Altman about the incident, the publicist warned Guiducci about running out of time, saying she'd like to "move on" to another topic.