Daniel Moreno-Gama, the man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home, faces state and federal charges after authorities said he traveled from Texas to San Francisco and targeted Altman and a security guard. Authorities said Moreno-Gama fled after igniting an exterior gate around 4 a.m. Friday and later threatened violence at OpenAI’s headquarters nearby.
FBI San Francisco Acting Special Agent in Charge Matt Cobo said during a press conference that the attack “was not spontaneous. This was planned, targeted and extremely serious.” Authorities said no one was injured at Altman’s home or at the company’s offices.
According to court documents, Moreno-Gama is accused of throwing the incendiary device at Altman’s residence in San Francisco. Police said the Molotov set an exterior gate at the home on fire before Moreno-Gama fled on foot, and less than an hour later authorities allege he went to OpenAI headquarters about 3 miles away and threatened to burn down the building.
The state charges, announced by the San Francisco district attorney, include attempted murder and attempted arson, officials said. Brooke Jenkins said Moreno-Gama tried to kill both Altman and a security guard at Altman’s residence, and she said the case carries penalties ranging from 19 years to life in prison. Moreno-Gama was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday in San Francisco, and online state records did not yet show whether he had an attorney.
Authorities said federal agents arrested Moreno-Gama in Spring, Texas, and spent several hours at his home before leaving. Court documents and a federal charging filing state that prosecutors have charged him with possession of an unregistered firearm and with damage and destruction of property by means of explosives. U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said authorities “will treat this as an act of domestic terrorism, and together with our partners, prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.”
In addition to the alleged threats and the physical evidence recovered after the attack, authorities described material found during the investigation that connected Moreno-Gama’s views to the case. The criminal complaint says Moreno-Gama opposed artificial intelligence and wrote about AI’s purported risk to humanity and “our impending extinction,” and it describes him identifying views opposed to artificial intelligence and the executives of various AI companies. The complaint also says Moreno-Gama’s document included threats against Altman.
The filing says surveillance video included in the criminal complaint shows a person wearing a dark hoodie and pants approaching Altman’s driveway and tossing a Molotov cocktail onto a metal gate. Authorities also said surveillance video outside OpenAI’s headquarters allegedly shows Moreno-Gama grabbing a chair and using it to hit glass doors, and that security personnel approached him and reported that he “stated in sum and substance” that he came to the headquarters “to burn it down and kill anyone inside,” as described in the complaint.
When Moreno-Gama was arrested Friday, authorities said they recovered incendiary devices, a jug of kerosene, a blue lighter, and a document. Moreno-Gama was being held in the San Francisco County Jail on the state charges, authorities said.
Advocacy groups that have warned about AI’s risks condemned the violence, and the attack prompted response from within the AI policy debate. Anthony Aguirre, president and CEO of the Future of Life Institute, said in a written statement Friday that “violence and intimidation of any kind have no place in the conversation about the future of AI.” PauseAI said in a statement that the suspect had no role in the group but that he joined a Discord forum about two years ago and posted about 34 messages, with none containing explicit calls to violence and one flagged as “ambiguous.” Discord said Monday that it had banned Moreno-Gama for “off-platform behavior.”
Altman addressed the threats hours after the attack, in a blog post in which he shared a photo of his husband and their toddler and urged that it might dissuade others from throwing a Molotov cocktail. In the post, Altman wrote that he shared the 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.” He added that fear and anxiety about AI are justified but said it was important to “de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally.”
The episode unfolded as debate over the societal impact of AI assistants like ChatGPT continues to grow, with many people relying on the tools for information, advice, writing support and other tasks. An annual report published Monday by Stanford University’s AI Index said most people believe AI benefits outweigh its drawbacks, while also adding that “nervousness is growing and trust in institutions to manage the technology remains uneven.”
Altman has emerged as a prominent voice in Silicon Valley on the potential dangers and promise of artificial intelligence, and the attack came days after The New Yorker published an in-depth investigation that touched on concerns some people have about him and the company.