Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and a prominent figure in Silicon Valley due to the success of the ChatGPT product in consumer-facing artificial intelligence, has been accused by his sister of sexually assaulting her for several years throughout their adolescence.
In a complaint submitted on Monday to the U.S. Eastern District Court of Missouri, Ann Altman alleges that she endured abuse by her older brother at their family residence in Clayton, Missouri, spanning approximately nine years, from 1997 to 2006. She claims that the abuse commenced when she was 3 years old and her brother, Sam Altman, was 12 years old. In the complaint, she asserts that the abuse included coerced sexual assault, molestation, sodomy, and battery.
Sam Altman refutes the charges in a message on his X (previously Twitter) account on Wednesday, asserting that his sister has “mental health challenges” for which she declines conventional treatment. The assertion, attributed to Altman, his mother, and his two brothers, suggests that Ann Altman has persistently sought financial assistance from her family, despite receiving a monthly allowance from their father’s estate, having her expenses and rent covered by them, and being presented with a house that she would possess through a trust.
“All of these claims are utterly untrue,” the statement reads. “This situation causes immense pain to our entire family. It is especially gut-wrenching when she refuses conventional treatment and lashes out at family members who are genuinely trying to help.”
A phone call placed to Ann Altman’s Illinois-based lawyer, Ryan Mahoney, was not immediately returned on Wednesday. Mahoney told the Wall Street Journal that his client has suffered from trauma, and “There is no evidence that her own mental health has contributed to her allegations.”
The lawsuit requests a jury trial and damages over $75,000. Damages have burdened the plaintiff “as a result of medical and mental health treatment for her injuries,” the complaint states, including lost wages and benefits.
In a subsequent post on X, Sam Altman wrote that in a letter sent to his attorney from Mahoney, the attorney explained that under Missouri law, they will be able to seek punitive damages and present the jury with Sam Altman’s net worth, which he said he believes will be around $1 billion two years from now, the amount of time he anticipated a case involving childhood sexual abuse spanning many years of rape and incest would take to work through the court.
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