Apr 14, 2026
The past few days have been scary ones for Sam Altman. On Friday, a man was arrested after lobbing a Molotov cocktail (1) at the San Francisco home of the OpenAI CEO. And early Sunday morning, two suspects were arrested (2) after a car stopped and appeared to fire a gun at the home.
The 20-year-old suspect of the Molotov cocktail incident, Daniel Moreno-Gama, now faces multiple charges including attempted arson and attempted murder, per San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. As noted by FBI San Francisco acting special agent in charge Matt Cobo, the attack “was planned, targeted and extremely serious.” The Department of Justice also revealed that the suspect had in his possession an anti-AI document (3).
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Before charges were announced, Altman suggested the attack was part of the growing backlash against AI and pointed to a recent article about him as a possible contributor to the Friday incident. (Altman's comments were published before the second incident.)
"There was an incendiary article about me a few days ago," Altman wrote in a blog post Friday night (4). "Someone said to me yesterday they thought it was coming at a time of great anxiety about AI and that it made things more dangerous for me. I brushed it aside. Now I am awake in the middle of the night and pissed, and thinking that I have underestimated the power of words and narratives."
Salacious accusations
Altman did not cite the article specifically, but he was the subject of a story (5) in the New Yorker earlier this month that listed several lurid tales, with the publication saying it could find no evidence to support any of them. Altman forcefully denied the rumors, calling the gossip "disgusting behavior from a competitor that I assume is part of an attempt at tainting the jury in our upcoming cases."
OpenAI, in a letter to the attorneys general in California and Delaware that followed that story's publication, accused Elon Musk of attempting to undermine OpenAI through a series of "attacks" on the company, saying (6) "he is directing the circulation of false and wholly unfounded allegations in the press in a last-ditch effort to discredit OpenAI and its leadership."
(X did not reply to a request for comment on those allegations.)
No one was hurt in either incident at Altman's home. Moreno-Gama allegedly threw the device at around 4:00 a.m., which caused a fire on an exterior gate. An hour later, a man threatening to burn down the OpenAI office was recognized as the same person and arrested.
Sunday's incident took place at 1:40 a.m. A security camera captured the license plate, which led to the arrests.
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AI fears
Altman, in his note Friday, acknowledged people's fears about AI, saying no one, including him, understands what the impacts of the technology will be.
"The fear and anxiety about AI is justified; we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever," he wrote. "We have to get safety right, which is not just about aligning a model — we urgently need a society-wide response to be resilient to new threats. This includes things like new policy to help navigate through a difficult economic transition in order to get to a much better future."
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At the same time, he urged people to not manifest those fears into physical attacks while the debate takes place. Altman said he hoped evangelists, critics and corporate rivals would "de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally."
'More vulnerable than ever'
The attacks on Altman come at a time when executives are especially concerned about the personal safety of themselves and their loved ones. The 2024 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City street and a 2025 Midtown Manhattan shooting that claimed the lives of two security guards and two executives at Blackstone and Rudin Management were wake-up calls to executives, particularly in controversial businesses.
"Executives are more vulnerable than ever," Kent Moyer, CEO of The World Protection Group, a California-based security company, told The San Francisco Standard.
The number of companies offering personal security benefits for CEOs had already increased by 10 percentage points from 2023 to 2024, reports Goldman Sachs (7). More than one-third (8) of S&P 500 companies reported security spending for executives in 2024, versus roughly 25% in the prior four years, per an article from the Wall Street Journal.
Protection costs add up quickly, too. Amazon spent $1.1 million to protect CEO Andy Jassy. Meta spent $10.4 million on security in 2024 for Mark Zuckerberg, plus another $14 million in additional security costs related to Zuckerberg and his family’s personal security. Walmart, Medtronic and others have also stepped up protections for their leaders.
OpenAI has not disclosed how much it spends to protect Altman and possibly other executives.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
CNBC (1); The San Francisco Standard (2); CNN (3) Sam Altman's Blog (4); The New Yorker (5); The Sacramento Bee 6; Goldman Sachs (7); The Wall Street Journal (8)
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Chris Morris is a veteran journalist with more than 35 years of experience, the majority of which were spent with some of the Internet’s biggest sites, including CNNMoney.com, where he was director of content development, and Yahoo! Finance, where he was managing editor. His work has also appeared on Fortune, Fast Company, Inc., CNBC.com, AARP, Nasdaq.com, and Voice of America, as well as dozens of other national publications.
