Elon Musk responds to report of Surat women using ChatGPT for suicide

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has reacted to the shocking deaths of two young women in Surat, Gujarat, after reports revealed that the two friends had used ChatGPT to search for ways to commit suicide.

Authorities believe they had injected themselves with an anaesthetic drug.Katie Miller, podcaster and former Advisor to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) shared: “Two women in India committed suicide after interactions with ChatGPT. They had reportedly searched ChatGPT about “how to commit suicide,” “how suicide can be done,” & “which drugs are used.” Please don’t let your loved ones use ChatGPT.”

Responding to a post about the incident on X, Musk offered just one word: “Yikes.”

What happened in Surat Temple

Childhood friends Roshni Sirsath, 18, and Josna Chaudhary, 20, left their homes on Friday (March 6) morning as usual, telling their families they were headed to college. When the two women did not return by afternoon and stopped answering phone calls, their families contacted the police. Using their active mobile phones, officers were able to trace the pair’s last location on the outskirts of the city.

Around 9:30 pm, family members spotted one of the girls’ scooters parked outside the Atmiya Sanskar Dham Swaminarayan Temple and began searching the premises. After checking the CCTV footage from the temple, they spotted that the two friends entered the washroom at 7:44 am, and never came out.When the locked washroom door was forced open, both women were found dead inside. Police recovered one empty vial, three drug vials, and three syringes near their bodies.

Authorities believe they had injected themselves with an anaesthetic drug. Sirsath was taken to New Civil Hospital and Chaudhary to SMIMER Hospital, where both were declared brought dead..

The ChatGPT connection in Surat girls’ death

The case became disturbing after investigators found on the victims' mobile phones that they both had used ChatGPT to look up methods of suicide using drugs. The search history on the phones showed an image of a news article about another woman who had died by suicide using an anaesthetic and it was also found saved on one of the phones. Police have not recovered any suicide note. Both girls were BCom students — Chaudhary in her second year at Wadia Women's College, and Sirsath in her first year at Udhna Citizen Commerce College.

Elon Musk to Sam Altman: ‘Nobody has committed suicide because of Grok’

Last week, Musk attacked Sam Altman’s OpenAI by criticising the company’s safety protocols. Musk contrasted OpenAI’s record with his own venture, xAI, claiming that while ChatGPT has been linked to incidents of self-harm, “nobody has committed suicide because of Grok.” OpenAI is currently facing multiple lawsuits alleging that manipulative interactions with its chatbot have contributed to negative mental health outcomes, including suicides.

Meanwhile, Musk’s xAI has faced its own significant controversies. Musk-owned social media platform X was flooded with non-consensual nude images generated by Grok, some of which reportedly depicted minors.