A 20-year-old man from Texas stands in the streets of Russian Hill in San Francisco, throwing a glass bottle filled with kerosene at Sam Altman’s home. The Molotov cocktail bounces off the front door, shatters on impact, and ignites a small fire. When the suspect is arrested, a note is found on his person containing the names and home addresses of multiple AI executives.
(Background: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s residence targeted with a Molotov cocktail! Late-night post reflects: AGI is like “the Lord of the Rings,” and AI power must be democratized)
(Additional background: Sam Altman looks at the future of AI through a rookie dad—humanoid robots are coming. Are you prepared?)
Table of Contents
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- Crime scene
- A declaration addressed to Altman
- Who is the suspect?
- Another shot on Sunday morning
- Sam Altman’s sleepless midnight
- Narrative as a weapon
At 3:00 a.m. on a Russian Hill street in San Francisco, the streets are quiet—like a scenic postcard. After all, this is an upscale residential area.
No one saw a young man walk up. Only the surveillance cameras saw a twenty-year-old approaching a home’s metal front gate from the north side of Chestnut Street, walking over and throwing the bottle in his hand. It was a simple Molotov cocktail filled with kerosene and stuffed with cotton cloth. The rules of physics made it bounce off the door and then burn. It was just a small fire—no one was injured.
But the owner of this house is Sam Altman.
Crime scene
Court records reconstructed the suspect’s route that night, reading like narration for a low-budget thriller.
At 3:37 a.m., the Molotov cocktail is thrown. A small fire burns outside the door, and Altman’s residence isn’t damaged any further.
Eighty-four minutes later, the same person appears outside the entrance of OpenAI headquarters a few kilometers away.
Around 5:00 a.m., surveillance footage shows him picking up a chair and smashing it into the building’s glass entrance. When security arrives, he says one line: he wants to burn down the building and kill everyone inside.
Police arrest him at the scene. What they find on his body raises the incident from “a midnight intrusion due to mental health issues” to another level, because he had a kerosene canister on him, a blue disposable lighter, extra incendiary devices, and an unregistered handgun.
There was also a sheet of paper.
A declaration addressed to Altman
The federal indictment cites this two-part document. The first part is titled “Your Last Warning.”
It claims the author has “killed or attempted to kill” Sam Altman and acknowledges the intent to carry out the action. What follows is a list—names and home addresses of multiple AI company executives, board members, and investors.
The wording used in the indictment is “hit list,” meaning an assassination list.
The document calls on others to join his “movement.” The rest of the second section is about the threat of AI to humanity’s extinction. At the end is a line spoken directly to Altman:
“If you miraculously survive, I’ll take it as a sign from God that you can atone for yourself.”
This is an assassination driven by reasons almost religious in nature.
Who is the suspect?
Daniel Alejandro Moreno-Gama, 20, is from Spring, a suburb of Houston, in a place called The Woodlands.
At 20 years old, federal prosecutor Craig Missakian brought two counts of attempted murder (Sam Altman himself + a security guard) along with attempted arson. Federal charges include intentionally damaging property with explosives and possessing an unregistered firearm.
On Monday, April 13, the FBI conducted a search at the suspect’s home. After staying for several hours, they left. FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt Cobo said at a press conference:
This isn’t an impulsive crime. This is premeditated, targeted, and extremely serious.
FBI Director Kash Patel personally oversaw the operation in Texas. Prosecutor Missakian added one more line, with a directness rarely seen from prosecutors acting alongside legal personnel: “If the evidence shows that Moreno-Gama carried out these attacks in order to change public policy or coerce government officials, we will prosecute him for domestic terrorism.”
Domestic terrorism—this is the first time this term has been used to describe “upending AI development.”
Another shot on Sunday morning
This story didn’t end on Friday.
On April 12—Sunday morning. A Honda sedan slowly drove past Chestnut Street in Russian Hill, made a U-turn in front of Altman’s residence, and then fired a shot at the house.
Two suspects were arrested immediately, including Amanda Tom, 25; and Muhamad Tarik Hussein, 23.
The police announcement was cautious and brief: “At this time, there is no evidence indicating that the two incidents are connected.”
This sentence is legal language, but it also hints at another possibility—maybe this isn’t an accomplice, maybe it’s worse. Maybe this means that the Molotov incident itself has already become a “case study,” being interpreted by others in their own ways.
Copycat offenders begin to reproduce themselves.
Sam Altman’s sleepless midnight
On the afternoon or evening of April 10—right on the day of the Molotov incident—Sam Altman posted on his personal blog. The article included photos of his family.
He began this way:
“We usually try to stay low-key, but this time I’m sharing photos of my family because I hope it will deter the next person who wants to throw a Molotov cocktail at my house—no matter what they think of me.
…Now I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, furious, and I’ve started thinking: I underestimated the power of words and narrative.”
He didn’t name anyone, but the article is traceable. In a recent sharp critique in The New Yorker, Sam Altman is described as some kind of dangerous technology-utopian evangelist.
That article has spread through the anti-AI community, getting screenshotted, taken out of context, and treated as a quote to be used in all kinds of posts saying “AI must be stopped.”
In his blog post, Altman calls for “reducing adversarial rhetoric,” welcoming “good-faith criticism and debate.” He ended it like this:
“I understand the anti-technology sentiment, and I know technology isn’t always beneficial for everyone. But overall, I believe that technological progress can make the future unbelievably good—for your family and my family as well.
As we continue to debate these issues, we should reduce escalation in words and in means, and try to ensure fewer houses experience fewer explosions—whether metaphorical or real.”
A man who wakes up in the middle of the night—his husband and children are all at home—is just learning that someone wants to burn down his home, and he’s trying to persuade this generation with words.
Narrative as a weapon
Now we need to talk about something even more uncomfortable.
The “adversarial debate” that Sam Altman briefly mentioned on his blog is worth taking seriously—how narrative can become a weapon.
In AI-based social blueprints, will everything—everything including opposition to AI as a pathfinder for humanity—eventually become part of AI? Will there still be humanity in the future?
This kind of confrontation is dangerous; it could create two major camps that support AI and oppose AI.
If the federal prosecutor ultimately charges Moreno-Gama with domestic terrorism, this will set an unprecedented precedent in U.S. legal history—the first criminal case classified as terrorism motivated by an “anti-AI ideology.”
The legal threshold for this charge is high. It must be proven that the intent of the action was to change public policy or coerce government institutions.
In the passage of the suspect’s “Your Last Warning” declaration that calls on others to join his “movement,” lies the most crucial evidence. This is not the act of a single angry person; it’s an attempt to trigger a broader campaign.
The prosecutor said, “We will not tolerate any actions that seek to use fear or violence to change how Americans live and work.”
Fear of AI is likely to become an enemy in narrative—and then become weaponized. If the suspect truly proceeds to prosecute as terrorism, then this kind of adversarial framing could become even stronger.
The direction of development of the AI industry won’t change because of a Molotov cocktail. But we can guess that in the future, anyone trying to challenge AI development will be thrown to the other side of the crowd and labeled as “an adversarial faction.”
We hope that we’re all doing well in the future.
