Police Arrest 20-Year-Old After Throwing Molotov Cocktail at Sam Altman’s San Francisco Home
Suspect detained at OpenAI offices after allegedly threatening to burn the building; no injuries reported
April 10, 2026 – 9:00 pm
In short:
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 traveling 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 at Russian Hill
At around 3:40 a.m. on Friday, a person approached the metal gate of 855 Chestnut Street—a 5,400-square-foot home on San Francisco’s Russian Hill that Sam 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., initially responding to what the department described as a fire investigation.
From Chestnut Street to Third Street
Less than an hour after the attack on Altman’s home, San Francisco police were dispatched to OpenAI’s offices on Third Street in Mission Bay after a man reportedly threatened to burn the building down. When officers arrived, they recognized the man from the surveillance footage captured at Chestnut Street and immediately detained him. The suspect is 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 Center of the Storm
The attack lands at a moment of extraordinary visibility and controversy for OpenAI and for 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 to prominent figures including Elon Musk and Bill Gates.