Police Arrest 20-Year-Old After Molotov Cocktail Thrown at Sam Altman’s San Francisco Home
A 20-year-old man was arrested in the early hours of Friday, April 10, 2026, after throwing a Molotov cocktail at the San Francisco home of OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, then travelling across the city to OpenAI’s offices and threatening to burn the building down. No one was injured. The suspect’s name has not been released, charges are pending, and no motive has been publicly disclosed.
The Attack on Russian Hill
At around 3:40 a.m., a person approached the metal gate of 855 Chestnut Street—a 5,400-square-foot home on San Francisco’s Russian Hill that Altman purchased in January 2025—and threw a bottle containing a flaming rag at it. The improvised incendiary device set the gate alight. Security guards at the property extinguished the fire before it spread. The incident was captured on surveillance cameras, and San Francisco Police Department officers arrived shortly after 4 a.m. responding to what the department initially described as a fire investigation.
From Chestnut Street to Third Street
Less than an hour after the attack on Altman’s home, police were dispatched to OpenAI’s offices in Mission Bay after a man reportedly threatened to burn down the building. When officers arrived, they recognised the man from the surveillance footage and immediately detained him. The suspect is identified as a 20-year-old male. As of Friday afternoon, charges had not been filed, and the department described the investigation as open and active.
OpenAI at the Centre of the Storm
The attack comes at a moment of extraordinary visibility and controversy for OpenAI and Altman personally. On March 31, 2026, OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round at an $852 billion valuation, the largest private fundraise in history, extending participation in its mission to develop artificial intelligence safely and responsibly.