Statement on the Attack on Sam Altman's Residence

Statement on the Attack on Sam Altman’s Residence

On 10 April 2026, the home of OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman was attacked with an incendiary weapon. A suspect has been arrested and is in police custody.

Pause AI unequivocally condemn this attack and all forms of violence, intimidation, and harassment. We wish safety and peace to Sam Altman, his family, and everyone affected. PauseAI exists because we believe everyone deserves to be safe, including Sam Altman and his loved ones. Violence against anyone is antithetical to everything we stand for.

Suspect’s connection to PauseAI

A few online commentators have described the suspect as a “PauseAI activist.” Here are the facts:

• He joined our public Discord server approximately two years ago.
• In that time, he posted a total of 34 messages.
• None of his messages contained explicit calls to violence. Our moderators nonetheless flagged one message as ambiguous and issued a warning out of caution.
• He had no role in PauseAI, participated in no campaigns, attended no events, and received no support from us.
• Following news of the attack, we banned him from our server.
• A moderator began removing his messages as part of our standard process for banning users, but was stopped once we recognised they could be relevant to any investigation.

Our Discord server is a public community space. As with any open forum, people can join freely. We actively moderate our channels and take enforcement seriously, as our warning to this individual demonstrates. But we cannot predict or control the actions of every person who joins a public server; no organisation can.

Why PauseAI exists

Concern about the risks of advanced AI is not a fringe position. As Professor Stuart Russell has observed, it constitutes the consensus view amongst the field’s foremost experts. This position is shared by leading AI researchers, members of US Congress and UK Parliament, institutions like the Bank of England, and many of the very AI developers building these systems.

That concern is growing because the risks are real. Most people  already agree that advanced AI development should be paused. Yet expert and public consensus alone is not sufficient to produce the regulation and democratic oversight that high-risk technologies demand. From nuclear weapons to climate change, history shows that translating concern into policy requires informed, organised public participation. This is the gap PauseAI fills.

When people are genuinely afraid for their future, they look for ways to act. PauseAI exists to ensure they have a constructive, peaceful, and democratic pathway for action. We organise protests, petitions, policy advocacy, and public education. Every day, we work to channel growing public concern into nonviolent civic participation. We call on the world’s decision makers to play their part in the democratic process in response to citizens choosing lawful, nonviolent engagement pathways.

The alternative to organised, peaceful movements is not silence. It is isolated, desperate individuals acting alone, without community, without accountability, and without anyone urging restraint or offering peaceful paths for action. That is a far more dangerous world, and it is exactly the world we are striving to prevent.

On those using this tragedy to discredit AI safety advocacy

We have noticed that a handful of commentators have seized on this incident to paint the broader movement for AI safety as dangerous or extremist. This is as opportunistic as it is wrong.

Advocating for safety, regulation, and democratic oversight of powerful technologies is a legitimate and necessary part of public life. Attempting to discredit peaceful advocacy by associating it with the actions of a lone individual is a disservice to public discourse, and to the serious conversation the world needs to be having about AI.

Our commitment

PauseAI will continue to build a peaceful, democratic, global movement advocating for the safe development of AI. We will continue to condemn violence in all its forms. We will continue to keep our community spaces moderated and our standards clear.

We welcome scrutiny of our organisation, our methods, and our values. We have nothing to hide.

If any journalist, investigator, or member of the public would like to speak with us, we encourage you to reach out at press@pauseai.info  .