Sam Altman's Home Hit by Gunfire Days After Molotov Attack, Two Arrested

San Francisco police arrested two people early Sunday after reported gunfire near OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's Russian Hill home, the second security incident at the property in 72 hours. A Honda sedan stopped outside Altman's compound around 1:40 a.m., and the passenger fired a round toward the Lombard Street side of the residence, according to a police report citing surveillance footage and the compound's security personnel. Amanda Tom, 25, and Muhamad Tarik Hussein, 23, were booked on suspicion of negligent discharge, the San Francisco Police Department said, whose Special Investigation Division is still working to determine whether Sunday's shooting and a Friday firebomb attack are connected.

Nobody got hurt, either time.

Two incidents, one address

The Sunday call hit dispatch at 2:56 a.m. A camera on the Chestnut-to-Lombard compound caught the Honda's plate as it fled. Investigators ran the tag to Tom, picked her and Hussein up at a place on the 2000 block of Taylor Street, and walked out with three guns on a search warrant. Whether any of those guns matches the round that got fired outside Altman's place, police are not saying. Chief Derrick Lew also stopped short of naming the house as the target.

That caution matters. Negligent discharge under California Penal Code 246.3 is a far lesser count than the attempted-murder and arson charges filed against Daniel Alejandro Moreno-Gama, the 20-year-old Texas man arrested Friday after allegedly chucking a Molotov cocktail at the Chestnut Street gate around 3:40 a.m. His charge sheet piles up. Attempted murder. Arson. Possession of an incendiary device. Criminal threats.

The Friday fire

Compound security stamped out the flames. Cameras rolled the whole thing. An hour later, SFPD officers at OpenAI's Mission Bay headquarters on Third Street ran into a man threatening to burn the place down, clocked him as the same guy from the Russian Hill attack, and took him into custody. The FBI is aware of the incident and working with San Francisco police, per OpenAI and SFPD statements. The San Francisco District Attorney's Office told ABC News that decisions on whether charges go local or federal could slip to the following week.

Moreno-Gama left a trail. He posted widely about AI as an existential risk to humanity, writing that AI "would lead to the extinction of humanity" because machines "were not aligned with the best interests of humans." He called tech executives people who "appeared to lack strong morals." In a PauseAI Discord server, according to The San Francisco Standard, he posted: "We are close to midnight, it's time to actually act."

What's verified, what isn't

Tom and Hussein have no visible online trail yet. Police have not released a motive, a political affiliation, or any link between them and Moreno-Gama. The two cases run on separate tracks. For now. Whether a house on Russian Hill has quietly become a destination for angry strangers, or whether coincidence is doing a lot of heavy lifting this weekend, sits with the Special Investigation Division.

Here is what the record holds. Two incidents. Two sets of arrests. Three seized firearms. One firebomb. Zero injuries. And a compound wired tight enough that both events came with receipts.

OpenAI, cornered

For a company that has spent two years selling ChatGPT as the future, the week's optics land hard. Altman has traveled with the president and met heads of state. His company released a "New Deal for AI" policy document, proposing a public wealth fund, a robot tax, and a four-day workweek, in the days before the Friday fire. Public views of AI in the United States have cratered. The company's chief executive now lives behind gates that have caught fire and walls that have, at minimum, drawn a shot. Twice. In three days.

You notice how fast the story escalated. Friday was an arson suspect with a Discord trail. Sunday was a different car, a different pair, a different charge sheet, and a compound whose cameras are doing work its owner would rather not advertise.

Altman, writing out loud

Altman answered the Friday fire with a blog post that skipped the PR polish. "The fear and anxiety about AI is justified," he wrote. "We are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever." Then, buried in the middle of the post, the line everybody clipped: "We should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally."

He is asking the critics to lower the volume. He is also, very publicly, reassessing his own.

What comes next

OpenAI wouldn't say anything further Sunday. SFPD's Special Investigations and Arson Units are running the Friday case. SID pulled the Sunday shooting. Neither case is closed. Five and a half bathrooms over at 855 Chestnut. Add the adjoining lots at 952 and 954 Lombard. Then add 950 Lombard, bought back in 2020. Cameras everywhere. Private security everywhere. And now, twice in three days, police tape. Whatever the next call to dispatch sounds like, it is going to arrive with footage attached.

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Marcus Schuler

San Francisco

Editor-in-Chief and founder of Implicator.ai. Former ARD correspondent and senior broadcast journalist with 10+ years covering tech. Writes daily briefings on policy and market developments. Based in San Francisco. E-mail: [email protected]