{"id":285662,"date":"2025-11-11T17:14:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T17:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/285662\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T17:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T17:14:13","slug":"openai-ceo-sam-altman-served-with-subpoena-on-stage-in-san-francisco-event-watch-what-happened-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/285662\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI CEO Sam Altman served with subpoena on stage in San Francisco event, watch what happened next"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OpenAI OpenAI CEO Sam Altman<\/a> was served with a subpoena while speaking at a recent live event in San Francisco. According to this court document, Altman is required to appear as a witness in an upcoming criminal trial involving anti-AI protesters. Video from the event at the Sydney Goldstein Theatre in San Francisco shows that this happened when he was onstage with basketball coach Steve Kerr when a man approached, held out an envelope, and stated he had \u201ca subpoena for Sam Altman.\u201d The crowd booed loudly as Altman declined to take the document, and the man was escorted away. “Wow, getting off to a dramatic start already,” Manny Yekutiel, the talk\u2019s moderator, commented on the situation. The man who delivered the document was an investigator from the San Francisco Public Defender\u2019s Office, which told local outlet SFGate that it had previously attempted to reach Altman. Soon after the incident, an activist group called \u201cStop AI\u201d claimed responsibility for the subpoena on social media. Several members of the group are currently on trial for repeatedly attempting to block OpenAI<\/a> employees from entering the company\u2019s headquarters, including during a widely reported protest in February, which the organisation described as a non-violent demonstration protected by law.This exchange occurred during a discussion focused on technology, inequality, and wealth. Altman was questioned about the contrast between Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang\u2019s $179 billion net worth and the millions of Americans losing access to food assistance. <\/p>\n

Why was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman subpoenaed on stage<\/p>\n

In a statement to SF Gate, Valerie Ibarra, a spokesperson for the public law office, said: \u201cAn investigator from the San Francisco Public Defender\u2019s Office lawfully served a subpoena on Mr Altman because he is a potential witness in a pending criminal case. Our investigators first made several prior attempts to serve the subpoena at Altman\u2019s company headquarters and via its online portal.\u201dThe subpoena relates to a criminal case involving the activist group Stop AI, with some of its members on trial for allegedly blocking entrances to OpenAI\u2019s San Francisco offices in February. Altman is now required to appear as a witness in that case. Stop AI said that its actions were meant to oppose what it considers a global existential threat. The activist group noted: \u201cAll of our non-violent actions against OpenAI were an attempt to slow OpenAI down in their attempted murder of everyone and every living thing on Earth. This trial will be the first time in human history where a jury of normal people are asked about the extinction threat that AI poses to humanity.\u201dOpenAI has faced multiple protests in recent months. In July, a group of activists gathered outside Altman\u2019s Bay Area residence to demonstrate against his support for US President Donald Trump and his \u201cBig Beautiful Bill,\u201d which introduced trillions of dollars in tax cuts and redirected billions away from social programs such as food assistance.In November, a group of artists who had early access to OpenAI\u2019s video-generation tool Sora released it publicly, accusing the company of using them as \u201cPR puppets\u201d to downplay its history of training AI models on artists\u2019 work without their consent.While Stop AI\u2019s approach has drawn attention, Altman himself has repeatedly spoken about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. He has said that AI could eliminate jobs, possibly entire job categories and permanently alter society in ways that could include a \u201cfraud crisis,\u201d greater inequality, expanded surveillance, and even the possibility of human extinction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was served with a subpoena while speaking at a recent live event in San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,150649,150650,150646,181,507,150648,1283,141529,7047,150644,150647,150645,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-285662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-existential-threat","10":"tag-ai-job-elimination","11":"tag-anti-ai-protests","12":"tag-artificial-intelligence","13":"tag-artificialintelligence","14":"tag-nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang","15":"tag-openai","16":"tag-openai-ceo","17":"tag-sam-altman","18":"tag-sam-altman-subpoena","19":"tag-san-francisco-event","20":"tag-stop-ai-activist-group","21":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}