A 20-year-old Texas man was charged Monday with two counts of attempted murder after he allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the San Francisco home of OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman before traveling to the company's headquarters and threatening to burn it down.
Daniel Moreno-Gama traveled from Spring, Texas, to San Francisco intending to kill Altman, authorities said at a news conference Monday, and was carrying writings opposing artificial intelligence along with the names and addresses of executives, board members and investors at AI companies. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the state charges carry penalties ranging from 19 years to life in prison. Moreno-Gama is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.
Pre-dawn attack on Altman's gate
Federal prosecutors allege Moreno-Gama set fire to an exterior gate at Altman's home around 4 a.m. Friday, then fled on foot. Surveillance images in the criminal complaint show a person in a dark hoodie tossing the device, which landed atop a metal gate and started a small fire. No one was injured.
Less than an hour later, Moreno-Gama went to OpenAI's headquarters roughly three miles away and used a chair to strike the glass doors, according to the complaint. Security personnel said he told them he came "to burn it down and kill anyone inside." Officers recovered incendiary devices, a jug of kerosene and a lighter.
Federal charges and a domestic-terrorism label
Moreno-Gama also faces federal charges of possession of an unregistered firearm and damage and destruction of property by means of explosives, carrying penalties of up to 10 and 20 years in prison, respectively. FBI agents searched his Texas home Monday morning.
"This was not spontaneous. This was planned, targeted and extremely serious," said Matt Cobo, the FBI's acting special agent in charge in San Francisco. U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said prosecutors "will treat this as an act of domestic terrorism."
The document found on Moreno-Gama included a section titled "Some more words on the matter of our impending extinction" and the line, "if I am going to advocate for others to kill and commit crimes, then I must lead by example and show that I am fully sincere in my message," according to the complaint.
Altman and industry response
Hours after the attack, Altman posted a photo of his husband and toddler, writing that he hoped the image "might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house." He called for participants in the AI debate to "de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally." OpenAI said "there is no place in our democracy for violence against anyone, regardless of the AI lab they work at or side of the debate they belong to."
Counterpoint from AI critics
Groups that have warned about AI's risks distanced themselves from the violence. Anthony Aguirre, president of the Future of Life Institute, said "violence and intimidation of any kind have no place in the conversation about the future of AI." PauseAI said Moreno-Gama had no role in the group but had joined its Discord forum roughly two years ago and posted about 34 messages, one of which was flagged as "ambiguous." Discord said it banned him for "off-platform behavior."
Altman later said he regretted linking the attack in a post to a New Yorker profile published last week that questioned his fitness to lead OpenAI.