By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Gilad Thaler, Jon Miller, Nikolay Nikolov, June Kim, Paul Abowd and Pierre Kattar

April 14, 2026

SAN FRANCISCO — The man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home had written about AI’s purported risk to humanity and traveled from Texas to San Francisco intending to kill Altman, authorities said Monday.

Authorities allege 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama threw the incendiary device about 4 a.m. Friday, setting an exterior gate at Altman’s home alight before fleeing on foot, police said. Less than an hour later, Moreno-Gama allegedly went to OpenAI’s headquarters about 3 miles (4.83 kilometers) away and threatened to burn down the building.

Moreno-Gama is opposed to artificial intelligence, writing about AI’s purported risk to humanity and “our impending extinction,” according to a federal criminal complaint.

“This was not spontaneous. This was planned, targeted and extremely serious,” said FBI San Francisco Acting Special Agent in Charge Matt Cobo during a press conference.

No one was injured at Altman’s home or the company offices, authorities said.

Moreno-Gama faces state and federal charges

Moreno-Gama faces charges including two counts of attempted murder and attempted arson in California state court, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. He tried to kill both Altman and a security guard at Altman’s residence, she alleged. He is set to appear in court Tuesday, and online state court records do not yet show if he has an attorney.

Jenkins said the state charges carry penalties ranging from 19 years to life in prison.

On Monday morning, FBI agents went to Moreno-Gama’s home in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston, where they spent several hours before leaving. He has been charged by federal prosecutors with possession of an unregistered firearm and damage and destruction of property by means of explosives. Those charges carry respective penalties of up to 10 years and 20 years in prison.

The federal court documents do not list an attorney for Moreno-Gama, and he has not yet had his first appearance in federal court.

Authorities allege Moreno-Gama traveled from his home in Texas to San Francisco and visited Altman’s home early Friday morning.

Authorities say Moreno-Gama was opposed to artificial intelligence

When Moreno-Gama was arrested Friday, officials found a document on him in which he “identified views opposed to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the executives of various AI companies,” court documents say. The document discussed AI’s purported risk to humanity and “our impending extinction,” according to the criminal complaint.

Surveillance video images included in the criminal complaint show a person dressed in a dark hoodie and pants that the FBI alleges is Moreno-Gama approaching the driveway of Altman’s home. In various images, the person can be seen tossing the Molotov cocktail, which landed at the top of a metal gate and started a small fire.

Surveillance video images from outside OpenAI’s headquarters allegedly show Moreno-Gama grabbing a chair and using it to hit a set of glass doors. Authorities said Moreno-Gama was approached by the building’s security personnel, who told investigators he “stated in sum and substance” that he came to the headquarters “to burn it down and kill anyone inside,” according to the complaint.

San Francisco police arrested Moreno-Gama and recovered “incendiary devices, a jug of kerosene, a blue lighter, and a document.” Moreno-Gama was being held Monday in the San Francisco County Jail on the state charges, and was expected to appear in court on Tuesday.

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.”

Authorities say Moreno-Gama’s anti-AI document contained threats against Altman

The document in which Moreno-Gama discussed his opposition to AI also made threats against Altman, officials said.

“Also 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,” Moreno-Gama is alleged by authorities to have written in the document.

Advocacy groups that have issued grave warnings about AI’s risks to society condemned the violence.

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.”

Another group, PauseAI, said in a statement that the suspect had no role in the group but joined its forum on the social media platform Discord about two years ago and posted about 34 messages there, none containing explicit calls to violence but one that was flagged as “ambiguous.”

Discord said Monday that it has banned Moreno-Gama for “off-platform behavior.”

Altman addressed the threats in a blog post

Hours after the attack on his house, Altman posted a photo of his husband and their toddler in a blog post addressing the threats against him.

“Normally we try to be pretty private, but in this case I am sharing a 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,” Altman wrote.

He added that “fear and anxiety about AI is justified” but it was important to “de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally.”

Altman has become a preeminent voice in Silicon Valley on the promise and potential dangers of artificial intelligence. The attack comes days after The New Yorker published an in-depth investigation that touched on concerns some people have about him and the company.

Debate about the impact of AI is growing

The attack came at a time of growing debate about the societal effects of AI assistants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT that millions of people are turning to for information, advice, writing help and to do work on their behalf.

An annual report published Monday by Stanford University called the AI index found that most people believe AI’s benefits outweigh its drawbacks, “but nervousness is growing and trust in institutions to manage the technology remains uneven.”

The Justice Department has fired at least four prosecutors who were involved in prosecutions under the FACE Act during the Biden administration, a government official familiar with the firings told CBS News.

Among those fired Monday is Sanjay Patel, a longtime federal prosecutor in the Civil Rights Division’s criminal section who was placed on administrative leave last month, sources told CBS News at the time. The terminations occurred at about the same time a report on the FACE Act and the Biden Justice Department was being finalized. 

Congress passed the FACE Act in 1994 to address rising concerns about threats and intimidation that women were facing at reproductive health clinics. Nonviolent and first-time offenses of the law are misdemeanors, while repeat offenses or violations that result in bodily injury or death can be treated as felonies.

The FACE Act report is being drafted by the Justice Department’s “weaponization working group,” established in the first days of former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s tenure. 

A Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement that the department “has terminated the employment of personnel responsible for weaponizing the FACE Act who still remained at the department.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly alleged without citing evidence that the Civil Rights Division under former Attorney General Merrick Garland used the Act to intentionally target conservative Christians who are morally opposed to abortion.

Although the Justice Department also pursued criminal charges against abortion rights activists who were accused of trying to scare volunteers and workers at a crisis pregnancy clinic that counseled on alternatives to abortion, excerpts of a draft the report reviewed by CBS News said the total number of such cases were minimal compared to those targeting conservative anti-abortion Christians.

Early in his second term, President Trump pardoned many of the FACE Act defendants convicted during the Biden administration. The Justice Department also dismissed several other FACE Act cases and ordered prosecutors to put the brakes on future FACE Act investigations.

At the same time, however, the current Justice Department has allowed the remaining FACE Act cases involving abortion rights activists to proceed without interference, with one Florida-based defendant receiving a 120-day prison term in March 2025.

Many of the other former federal prosecutors who handled FACE Act cases have since left the Justice Department.

MS NOW was first to report that Patel had been placed on administrative leave.