A 20-year-old man was arrested in San Francisco after allegedly attacking Sam Altman’s home with a Molotov cocktail and later threatening to burn down OpenAI’s headquarters.
San Francisco police arrested a 20-year-old man on Friday after he allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the North Beach home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, igniting a fire at a perimeter gate before moving on to threaten the company’s headquarters. While the suspect fled the residential scene before officers arrived, he was apprehended approximately one hour later outside an OpenAI office after threatening to “burn down the building,” prompting a company spokeswoman to note that “thankfully, no one was hurt” and express gratitude for the swift police response in helping “keep our employees safe.”
The SFPD has declined to provide further details on the suspect’s status or pending charges, citing “an active and open investigation” into the targeting of the high-profile billionaire. The incident comes as OpenAI navigates intense public scrutiny over the “major social and economic upheaval” predicted to accompany the rise of artificial intelligence, a shift the firm recently suggested should be mitigated by government policies that keep “people first.”