A $27 million Russian Hill mansion belonging to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has been struck by gunfire just 48 hours after a separate arson attack, with San Francisco police arresting two suspects following the escalating violence that prompted the tech leader to publicly share photographs of his family whilst pleading for de-escalation.
Amanda Tom, 25, and Muhamad Tarik Hussein, 23, face negligent discharge charges after allegedly firing a single handgun shot at Altman’s property around 2.56am Sunday from a Honda sedan that surveillance footage captured doubling back after an initial drive-past reconnaissance.
Security personnel heard the gunshot and cameras recorded the passenger extending their hand through the window before firing at the mansion’s side, with the vehicle’s license plate capture enabling police to trace the suspects to a residence where officers discovered three firearms during searches preceding the arrests.
The Sunday shooting follows Friday’s early-morning Molotov cocktail attack that saw 20-year-old Alejandro Daniel Moreno-Gama arrested after throwing the incendiary device at the mansion’s exterior gate, with an OpenAI spokesperson confirming the suspect “also made threats at our San Francisco headquarters” though “thankfully, no one was hurt.”
Neither incident resulted in injuries, though the rapid succession of attacks appears validating anxieties Altman expressed in a Friday blog post reflecting on the firebombing.
“Words have power too. There was an incendiary article about me a few days ago,” Altman wrote, acknowledging he initially “brushed aside” suggestions the piece—published days before the attacks—created danger before later reconsidering: “Now I am awake in the middle of the night and pissed, and thinking that I have underestimated the power of words and narratives.”
The OpenAI CEO shared photographs of his husband Oliver Mulherin and their infant child alongside the post, explaining: “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.”
Whilst Altman declined naming the allegedly “incendiary” article, the attacks followed an explosive New Yorker investigation by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz citing multiple sources questioning whether the powerful CEO could be trusted.
Altman’s blog post defended advancing science and technology as “moral obligations” whilst hailing artificial intelligence as “a powerful tool for expanding human capability,” though he acknowledged AI anxiety remained justified with “good-faith criticism and debate” welcomed.
He concluded with appeals for restraint: “While we have that debate, we should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally.”
Tom and Hussein were booked into San Francisco County Jail following their arrests.
