OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been making the headlines over the past few months for various reasons, including a beef with Elon Musk over switching to a for-profit model and putting OpenAI former board members on blast who fired him from his role last November.
But the latest controversy around Altman is coming from his sister, Annie Altman, who is suing the CEO over allegations of sexual abuse. As per a report by The New York Times, Sam Altman’s younger sister filed a lawsuit in a Missouri federal court on Monday, claiming that her brother sexually abused her when she was a minor.
The lawsuit alleges that the harassment occurred from 1997 to 2006 in the family’s home outside St. Louis and started when the plaintiff was only 3 years old. As a result, the lawsuit claims Ms. Altman “experienced PTSD, severe emotional distress, mental anguish and depression, which is expected to continue into the future.”
In March 2023, Annie Altman made similar allegations against her brother, writing in her X account, “I’m not four years old with a 13 year old ‘brother’ climbing into my bed non-consensually anymore.”
In response to the allegations, Altman’s family shared a statement and refuted all claims made by Ms. Altman. The statement reads that Ms. Altman is dealing with “mental health challenges” and refuses conventional treatment.
“Annie has made deeply hurtful and entirely untrue claims about our family, especially Sam. We’ve chosen not to respond publicly, out of respect for her privacy and our own. However, she has now taken legal actions against Sam, and we feel we have no choice but to address this.”
According to Ms. Altman’s lawyer, their lawsuit requests a jury trial and damages in excess of $75,000 because this is the minimum required for a federal suit of this kind. The lawyer also added that they wanted punitive damages based on Sam Altman’s net worth, which is said to be around $1.1 billion.
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