San Francisco police say they have a 20-year-old male in custody after someone threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's mansion early Friday morning.
Officers responded to a North Beach residence at approximately 4:12 a.m. local time for a fire investigation, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department, Allison Maxie, said in a statement. No one was injured, and the fire was contained to an exterior gate, the spokesperson said.
OpenAI later confirmed that the attack occurred at Altman's $27 million estate in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco.
The suspect fled on foot, and his description was later broadcast to all officers, according to SFPD.
At around 5:07 a.m., officers responded to OpenAI's office, where they said an unknown man was threatening to burn down the building. Officers quickly realized the man making the threats matched the description of the individual who threw the Molotov cocktail at Altman's home, the police spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for OpenAI praised SFPD's quick response.
"Early this morning, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's home and also made threats at our San Francisco headquarters. Thankfully, no one was hurt," a spokesperson for the AI company said. "We deeply appreciate how quickly SFPD responded and the support from the city in helping keep our employees safe."
SFPD said that charges are still pending and the investigation is ongoing.
Once just a mainstay in Silicon Valley and the startup scene, Altman has become an international fixture who has traveled with President Donald Trump and met one-on-one with numerous other foreign leaders.
At the same time, views of AI in the US have cratered in recent months. Criticism of OpenAI spiked in the wake of the company's decision to announce a deal with the Pentagon hours after Anthropic refused to agree to the Department of Defense's contractual demands.
On Friday, Altman addressed the incident with a post on his personal blog, alongside a photo of his husband, Oliver Mulherin, and their child.
"Normally we try to be pretty private, but in this case I am sharing a photo in the hopes that it might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house, no matter what they think about me," Altman wrote.
"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," Altman added. "Now I am awake in the middle of the night and pissed, and thinking that I have underestimated the power of words and narratives."
Threats against tech leaders have pushed companies to spend on executive protection. Mark Zuckerberg's security costs more than $20 million in 2019. According to Tesla's SEC filing, the company "incurred expenses of approximately $2.4 million for such security services in 2023 and approximately $0.5 million through February 2024, representing a portion of the total cost of security services concerning Elon Musk."
It's unclear how much OpenAI allocates to security for Sam Altman and other executives, but recent incidents underscore the stakes. Last year, employees at the company's San Francisco headquarters were told to shelter in place after a reported threat from an individual previously linked to an anti-AI activist group, prompting a police response near the Mission Bay office.
