Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 6: responses from Sam and his family members; my perspective

post by pythagoras5015 (pl5015) · 2025-03-31T12:26:25.256Z · LW · GW · 1 comments

Contents

  Previous posts (which you should read first)
      The 7 posts are meant to be read in order. 
      So, if you haven't read the first 5 posts, please read them, in order, before you read this post:
  Have Sam or his other family members responded to these claims?
  My Perspective
    Opening Comments
    How to interpret these claims?
    Things I find Questionable/Unexplained
    Anticipating and Responding to Potential Objections
    Responding to Objections/Comments I've Seen From Others
    Concluding Remarks
    I made an account on X (Twitter) (to reach out to Annie & Sam)
    Disclaimer
  Next post
None
1 comment

Previous posts (which you should read first)

This post is the 6th post in a series of 7 posts about the claims of Sam Altman's sister, Annie Altman. Annie has claimed that Sam sexually abused her for about 9 years as a child, and that she experienced further (non-sexual) abuse from Sam, her brothers, and her mother after that.

The 7 posts are meant to be read in order. 

So, if you haven't read the first 5 posts, please read them, in order, before you read this post:

• Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 1: Introduction, outline, author's notes [LW · GW]
• Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 2: Annie's lawsuit; the response from Sam, his brothers, and his mother; Timeline [LW · GW]
• Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 3: Timeline, continued [LW · GW]
• Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 4: Timeline, continued continued [LW · GW]
• Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 5: Literature on child sexual abuse and trauma [LW · GW]

---

Have Sam or his other family members responded to these claims?

On January 7, 2025, Sam Altman made a post on X (formerly Twitter), providing a statement from his mother, his brothers, and him. 

• From his post:
  • "My sister has filed a lawsuit against me. Here is a statement from my mom, brothers, and me:"
    • "Our family loves Annie and is very concerned about her well-being. Caring for a family member who faces mental health challenges is incredibly difficult. We know many families facing similar struggles understand this well."
    • "Over the years, we've tried in many ways to support Annie and help her find stability, following professional advice on how to be supportive without enabling harmful behaviors. To give a sense of our efforts, we have given her monthly financial support, directly paid her bills, covered her rent, helped her find employment opportunities, attempted to get her medical help, and have offered to buy her a house through a trust (so that she would have a secure place to live, but not be able to sell it immediately). Via our late father's estate, Annie receives monthly support, which we expect to continue for the rest of her life."
    • "Despite this, Annie continues to demand more money from us. In this vein, Annie has made deeply hurtful and entirely untrue claims about our family, and especially Sam. We've chosen not to repsond publicly, out of respect for her privacy and our own. However, she has now taken legal action against Sam, and we feel we have no choice but to address this."
    • "Over the years, she has accused members of our family of improperly withholding our father's 401k funds, hacking her wifi, and "shadowbanning" her from various websites including ChatGPT, Twitter, and more. The worst allegation she has made is that she was sexually abused by Sam as a child (she has also claimed instances of sexual abuse from others). Her claims have evolved drastically over time. Newly for this lawsuit, they now include allegations of incidents where Sam was over 18."
    • "All of these claims are utterly untrue. 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."
    • "We ask for understanding and compassion from everyone as we continue to support Annie in the best way we can. We sincerely hope she finds the stability and peace she's been searching for."
    • "-Connie, Sam, Max, and Jack"
• Lucy Guo replied to Sam's post:
  • "I respect you tons but let's be real - $75k is not a money grab, especially for you."
  • "It raises way more questions than it addresses"
• Sam Altman replied to Lucy Guo's reply:
  • ""in excess of $75,000" is something required for this court, i believe."
  • "in case there is any doubt about the goal here, here is something annie's lawyer wrote to my lawyer:"
  • ""Significantly, given our client’s tort claims involve sexual assault and sexual battery, we are allowed to seek punitive damages in this case under Missouri law. This means we will be allowed to seek discovery on Sam Altman’s net worth and present Sam Altman’s net worth to the jury for consideration on a punitive damages award. It is not often where we have a case involving childhood sexual abuse spanning many years of rape and incest where the individual Defendant has the ability to pay a nine-figure punitive damages verdict. That is a very real possibility here. Most sexual abuse cases take two years on average to litigate. I would expect based on my research that Mr. Altman’s net worth may exceed $1 Billion by the time we get to trial, if it hasn’t already.""

 

Prior to January 7, 2025, the following responses were provided by members of the Altman family:
 

From Sam Altman is the Oppenheimer of Our Age by Elizabeth Weil (published September 25, 2023) --

"The Altman family would like the world to know: “We love Annie and will continue our best efforts to support and protect her, as any family would.""

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

 

• c.f. [EW23a] and Sam Altman is the Oppenheimer of Our Age for the full context.
• More of the context in which the quote was provided:
  • "Annie has moved more than 20 times in the past year. When she called me in mid-September, her housing was unstable yet again. She had $1,000 in her bank account.
  • Since 2020, she has been having flashbacks. She knows everybody takes the bits of their life and arranges them into narratives to make sense of their world.
  • As Annie tells her life story, Sam, their brothers, and her mother kept money her father left her from her.
  • As Annie tells her life story, she felt special and loved when, as a child, Sam read her bedtime stories. Now those memories feel like abuse.
  • The Altman family would like the world to know: “We love Annie and will continue our best efforts to support and protect her, as any family would.”
  • Annie is working on a one-woman show called the HumAnnie about how nobody really knows how to be a human. We’re all winging it."

 

 

From OpenAI Part 4: Heaven and Hell, Part 2 from Bloomberg's the Foundering podcast (published June 20, 2024):

Ellen Huet (host of the podcast): "We reached out to Sam his siblings, and his mom for comment in this episode. His mom, Connie Gibstine, responded with this statement:"

Connie Gibstine: "We love Annie and are very concerned about her well being. Over the years, we have offered her financial support and help and continued to offer it today. Navigating the balance between providing support without enabling self destructive behavior for a family member with mental health struggles is extraordinarily difficult. We only want the best for Annie and hope everyone will treat her with compassion."

 

 

My Perspective

Opening Comments

1. This post began when I stumbled upon a repost on X of a post from Annie Altman in which she claimed that her brother, Sam Altman, sexually assaulted/abused her as a child (she was 4, he was 13), and that she has endured various other forms of abuse from him throughout her life. As it turns out, Annie has made a lot of very serious claims about Sam Altman.
2. From the documents in the lawsuit -- see Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 2: Annie's lawsuit; the response from Sam, his brothers, and his mother; Timeline -- and other source material I've referenced throughout these posts, it is clear that Annie is indeed Sam's biological sister, and that Sam is aware of, and has responded to, her claims.
3. Annie Altman has been posting consistently about being abused by Sam Altman (and Jack Altman, to a lesser extent) for about 4 years (~2019-present) across multiple social media platforms. Annie is largely self-consistent with the claims she makes over time.

Note: the situation has changed greatly since I first made this post back in October 2023, and I presume the situation will continue to change as the lawsuit progresses. I'll try to keep these posts updated, but parts of my perspective may be outdated depending on when you read them.

How to interpret these claims?

• Annie has been making these claims for a long time, and has been self-consistent in the way she has been making them, from what I can tell.
• However, Annie has not yet provided what I would consider direct / indisputable proof that her claims are true. Thus, rationally, I must consider Sam Altman innocent.
• However, this is not to say that think Annie's claims are entirely false or implausible. Rather, I simply do not know whether Annie's claims are true or false.
• Given the degree to which Annie has pursued these claims, I think one of the following is likely:
  1. The severe mental / psychological problems which Annie is dealing with have unfortunately caused her to misunderstand, misrepresent, disconnect (to some degree from), or selectively-filter reality into an incomplete understanding.
     1. Or, relatedly, perhaps some of the (less serious) things Annie has claimed (e.g. that she had problems with her phone service, had low engagement / potential shadowbanning on some of her social media accounts) did indeed occur, but she overextrapolated to a larger narrative behind these events that is innaccurate.
  2. Annie is indeed telling the truth, in whole or in part.
• I don't know which is true. Both are certainly plausible explanations. 

 

Things I find Questionable/Unexplained

 

Annie claims her grandmother saw {Annie's brothers?} playing "dwarf tossing" with Annie's baby body, and condemned it. Did Annie's grandmother ever tell Jerry about this? Did Jerry or Connie ever witness this behavior? If so, how did they respond to it?

 

 

At what age did Sam develop vocal fry? Was the onset gradual, or sudden? Was it precipitated by a traumatic event that Sam experienced? 

(Vocal fry can develop as a result of trauma. See: Vocal Fry: Defining a Common Language Register -- verywellhealth.com.)

 

 

If Sam molested Annie, what caused this highly abnormal behavior? Was it genetic factors, e.g. those encoding psychopathy, anti-social disorder, or related traits? Or might it have been learned behavior? Or was it perhaps downstream of a traumatic experience that Sam himself went through?

 

 

If Connie did indeed tell Annie to keep quiet about the sexual abuse she experienced from Sam -- why? Such a response is not normal. Why exactly did Connie not want Annie to speak about this? What motives did she have for having Annie not tell other people about getting molested by Sam?

 

 

Annie claims that, around ~2016-2018, before he died, Jerry was working overtime, commuting between St. Louis and Kansas city, with a heart condition, because he needed the money. But I am a bit confused -- Jerry was a lawyer, and Connie was a dermatologist. Both of those professions pay relatively well. Both Jack and Annie attended John Burroughs School, a private school (for grades 7-12) that currently charges students a staggering $36,300 per year in tuition. Though I can imagine ways in which it could be possible, I still wonder why exactly Jerry didn't have enough money to retire, and why Jerry needed to work overtime for money all the way up until he died at age 67.

 

 

Jerry sent Annie a text message in January 2018, part of which read "I don't just support your lifestyle now or your physical and emotional endeavors now; I support your life. I will always support your life. These are aspects of your life, so I support those too." What was the other part of this text message? What prompted Jerry to say this to Annie?

Annie has noted that Connie and her brothers were not as supportive of her career transition (away from a pre-med track and into yoga and more creative & artistic pursuits) after she graduated college, though Jerry was supportive. Is this related?

 

 

Jerry had a known heart condition. Why was he rowing on Creve Coeur Lake just before he died at age 67? Wouldn't he have known that this would have put him at risk for heart-related problems, e.g. a heart attack? 

 

 

How much did Jerry Altman know? Did he know anything? 

Jerry was in the same household with Sam, Jack, Max, and Connie for many years. I think it's unlikely that he would have been completely ignorant of, at minimum, the various mental health issues that Annie experienced beginning in early childhood.

Some specific examples:

- Annie told Elizabeth Weil that she was thinking of suicide by age 5, and getting up in the middle of the night needing to take baths to calm her anxiety. Was 5-year-old Annie able to fill up the bath & take a bath unassisted? Or was there a family member who would help her? If so -- who was that family member? Did Jerry ever see this happen?

- On May 28, 2018 (3 years before Annie publicly acused Sam of molesting her), Annie wrote that her and Jerry were "always very close, talking about all the feels, all the music, and all the athletic activities." This seems especially notable to me. In light of this, I think it's extremely likely that Jerry was well-aware of Annie's various mental health problems. Additionally -- note that Annie said that her and Jerry were "always" very close. It seems Annie told Elizabeth Weil that, at age 5, she began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to take baths to calm her anxiety [EW23a], and then by age 6, she was thinking about suicide, even though she didn't know the word. From [AA19c], it seems that Annie was about 7 when she began to criticize her appearance. If Jerry and Annie were "always" close, then it seems pretty likely to me that Jerry would have known about some of this. Additionally, Jerry likely witnessed his son Jack being a "tired" kid, falling asleep face-first in his mac-and-cheese at dinner. So, more questions: was Jerry, a lawyer, ever suspicious of the abnormal behavior he observed in two of his children (Jack, Annie)? Did he ever suspect that something was awry? Did he ever suspect anything of his oldest child, Sam? Did he ever witness abusive behavior from Sam?

 

 

As I stated earlier in the timeline -- I find it hard to reconcile the different stories Annie and Sam tell about their Dad's death? I'll copy-paste what I wrote above in the timeline here, regarding my confusion:

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

Note: In my opinion, Annie and Sam tell stories about their dad's death that, to me, seem rather different and hard to reconcile --

 

Annie says:

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

 

• {Jerry was} "working overtime, with known heart conditions. The dream he expressed to retire in Costa Rica was never fulfilled by his millionaire son, who could have retired our father that he claimed to love." [AA24c]
• "What would have been our last family trip, I chose not to go for various reasons. I asked our Dad to be given a check for whatever would have been spent on my fancy plane ticket and accommodations. Dad didn’t ever tell me about getting money from Sam, and got quiet about his Costa Rica dream" [AA24d]
• "I asked for money and resources to be given to our Dad numerous times before he died." [AA23q]
• ""One time I found a $500k watch at my oldest siblings’ place {Sam's place}, casually in an open kitchen cabinet. Another sibling told me how much the watch was, and then got bullied for disclosing to me. I asked why our 60-something Dad (with heart conditions) was making rent and car payments.
  Surely retiring the father you claimed closeness with was more valuable than a watch????????
  If our Dad had his needs taken care of, I would have supported multiple fancy watches" [AA24m]
  • It seems (e.g. via the analysis given in this article from KeepTheTime.com [LW · GW] [KTT23a], or in this Business Insider article [LW · GW] [BI23b [LW · GW]]) that this watch was the ~$500,000 Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1 (with the Rose Gold 5N metal type [LW · GW] [KTT23a].)
    • ...not to be confused with the ~$100,000 Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar Ref. 1526 wristwatch that Sam also owned as of May 23, 2018 {see the "Sam's wristwatches" I wrote below}

 

 

Sam's wristwatches:

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️  

 

 

Sam can be seen wearing {what seems likely to be} his Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1 in "WIRED25: Sebastian Thrun & Sam Altman Talk Flying Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence", published 10/16/2018:

• 

• It seems that, as of May 23, 2018, Sam also owned a ~$100K Philippe Patek Perpetual Calendar Ref. 1526 watch, which he posted a picture of to Reddit (on May 23, 2023):

  • 

  • The picture of the watch is not currently shown in the Reddit post. I found a link to it in the post's source code (using Inspect Element):

    • 

  • I also found the date & time of the post's creation in its source code:

    • 

    • (Note: as I noted on Twitter, I originally got this date wrong, accidentally mistaking the date and time at which a comment on the post was made for the date and time at which the post itself was made. Sorry about that.)
  • It seems this was the same watch that Sam wore when testifying to congress on Tuesday, May 16, 2023 about AI regulation:

 

 

 

Sam says:

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

 

 

• (32:28-33:49) "AGI and my family are the two main things I care about, so losing one of those is like...so yeah I mean it was just like unbelievably painful. The only comparable set of life experience that I had, and that one was of course much worse, was when my dad died. And that was like a very sudden thing. But the sense of like confusion and loss...in that case, I felt like I had a little bit of time to just like feel it all. But then there was so much to do. Like it was like so unexpected that I had to pick up the pieces of his life for a little while. And it wasn't until, like, a week after that I really got a moment to just, like, catch my breath and be like, holy shit, like, I can't believe this happened. So yeah, that was much worse." [TN23a]

 

 

 

 

If was Sam Altman was completely fine with posting a link to Annie's Youtube channel on Twitter on Feb 2, 2018, why did he (and Jack Altman) refuse to post a link to the podcast episode he filmed with Annie on Dec 7, 2018 [LW · GW] on the basis that it "didn't align with {his} businesses", as Annie claimed to Elizabeth Weil [LW · GW]?

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

 

• If Sam did indeed say this, I am a bit confused, as it seems a bit inconsistent to me that Sam identified Annie's Youtube channel as "aligning with his businesses", yet identified the podcast that he recorded with Annie as "not aligning with his businesses." The reason I state that this seems inconsistent is because I don't see what exactly what it was about Annie's podcast that made it "not align" with Sam's businesses given that Annie's Youtube channel "did align."

 

 

In the legal (probate) case (case number: 18SL-PR01960) relating to Jerry's Will and Estate had (opened 06/12/2018), a "Proof of Mailing" was submitted on 07/09/2018. 

In my (amateur) understanding, this means that Annie should have received a notice in the mail from the court clerk notifying her that her mother (Connie) had been appointed as the legal representative for the legal (probate) case regarding Jerry's will and estate.

In light of this, I'm surprised that Annie, one of her father Jerry's legal heirs, only met Pete for the first time around 09/22/2019 (see the email that Sam Altman sent to Pete Palumbo and Annie Altman the Timeline above), so long after her father's death. Why was it that Sam both knew Pete before Annie did? Furthermore, Pete was working attorney for as Connie (the personal representative) as of 06/12/2018. Thus, at minimum, Connie knew Pete for over 1 year and 3 months before Sam sent the email instructing Pete to "meet" Annie on 09/22/2019. Why did Connie know Pete for so long, but (as it seems to me) never introduce Annie to him/tell Annie about him? Annie was an heir of Jerry's just like Sam was. Why was Sam in contact with Pete before Annie was? Why was Sam the one making the introduction? Shouldn't Pete have reached out to Annie himself, given that she was one of Jerry's legal heirs?

Annie notes that a passport was stolen from her mail around the time she started her podcast. The first episode of Annie's podcast came out on 08/14/2018. Hmm. Was Annie's passport the only thing stolen from Annie's mail around that time, or were other items stolen as well? Was the legally-required information regarding the legal (probate) case relating to Jerry's death/Will/Estate indeed mailed to Annie as legally required, only for it to be stolen out of Annie's mail? Who might have had a motive to steal such a thing from Annie's mail?

I think I may accidentally have assigned a date to Annie getting her passport stolen that wasn't accurate. For now, I maintain that I don't know exactly when Annie's passport got stolen. Sorry for my mistake there. Quote from Annie:

"I had to get my passport renewed, and then it got stolen in the mail" [RE23a]

 

 

Why was the judge for the legal (probate) case regarding Jerry's Will and Estate reassigned twice (for a total of three different judges), within the span of 18 days? And why was the judge then reassigned again, for the third time, on May 19, 2020?

 

 

Annie references a variety of things in Email about my Dad’s Trust [AA24a] (which is addressed to Annie's "mother's laywer" [AA24a], who I think is Pete Palumbo), including things that her short-term lawyer mentioned, that I don't fully understand:
-- something related to Hydrazine?
-- something related to "a fund of my siblings', and one of my Dad's buildings with my-Dad's-old-boss" [AA24a]?
-- divisions of {Jerry's Trust, which was established per his Will}?
-- delayment of the funding of Jerry's Trust?
-- Jerry's Trust now being funded, even though Pete Palumbo previously said it couldn't be funded?
-- why did Annie only learn that she could "make an as of the Trust with a monthly budget" [AA24a] after Annie's short-term lawyer talked to Pete Palumbo?
-- why was Anie not contacted about "the potential to request a non-prejudicial lump sum in accordance with my wishes" [AA24a]?
-- Annie writes, "The Trust makes it clear that my Dad's wish was for me to have been supported in tese six years since his death. In the absence of the support intended for me in my Dad’s Trust, I’ve experienced two and a half years of houseless and homelessness and daily PTSD flashbacks, and I’ve had to resort to survival sex work to support myself financially while still navigating physical illnesses." [AA24a]. 
Why was the fufillment of Jerry's wishes collectively blocked by Sam Altman, Connie Gibstine, and Pete Palumbo?

 

 

Why has it taken over 6 years for Jerry's estate to be administered? Why has Pete Palumbo repeatedly filed for extensions?

 

 

I thought that Jerry was working overtime up until his death until he died. But his personal property was valued at $727,107.49 less than 5 months after his death (and is now valued at over 1 million dollars.) This should have been enough money for Jerry to retire on. So why was Jerry still working? 

Also -- what is this "personal property" of Jerry's? Where did it come from?
 

 

 

Note: I wrote this question before the lawsuit was filed. There has been media coverage about the lawsuit.

Annie has been speaking out about Sam for roughly 3 years now. In 2021, she made her claims quite clear on her X account. I am confused as to why there has been basically 0 coverage of her claims in the media? In general, why is Annie so absent in anything related to Sam Altman on the Internet, especially considering the nature of her relationship with Sam?

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

 

• The sole exception here, of course (*as of the day I first published this post, i.e. October 7, 2023*), is Elizabeth Weil's nymag article [LW · GW], but even this article doesn't directly state the entirety of the claims that Annie has made. Instead, it kind of vaguely addresses them, using somewhat inspecific phrasing like "Now those memories feel like abuse", or "Since 2020, she has been having flashbacks" that don't quite capture the gravity of what Annie has been claiming.

 

 

Why, as some commenters on Hacker News claim, has a post regarding Annie's claims that Sam sexually assaulted her at age 4 been repeatedly removed?

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

 

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37785072
• https://x.com/JOSourcing/status/1710390512455401888

 

 

Sam returned to his high school, John Burroughs School (JBS), on October 14, 2023. On November 22, 2023, Annie wrote "At one point recently a high school faculty member, from our same school {John Burroughs School}, spoke with me and attempted to convince me to break no contact." Did Sam return to JBS on October 14, 2023 so he could speak with a faculty member who knew both him and Annie and convince them to reach out to Annie to try to get him to break no contact?

Some Twitter post's of Annie's were rediscovered around October 4, 2023. I published (the first version of) this post on October 7, 2023. Did these factors motivate Sam's return to JBS, and his attempts to get Anine to break no contact using a JBS faculty member as a middleman?

If Sam did use a JBS faculty member as a middleman to try to get Annie to start talking to him again, who was that faculty member? Was there a reason in particular that Sam chose that faculty member? What does that faculty member know about Sam? What does that faculty member know about Annie?

What exactly is the nature of Sam's relationship to JBS, and specific members of its faculty? Why exactly has Sam returned to JBS numerous times? Is there a member of the JBS faculty who knows something important about Sam and/or Annie?

 

 

Anticipating and Responding to Potential Objections

I initially hesitated to make this post, because I was initially skeptical of Annie's claims. However, I changed my mind -- I think there is a nonzero probability that Annie is telling the truth, in whole or in part, and thus believe her claims ought to receive greater attention and further investigation.

Assuming that my personal understanding of Annie's story, as presented above, is correct, Annie's behavior potentially makes sense.

So -- assuming my understanding is correct, I provide the following responses to (potential) objections regarding (the validity of) Annie's claims:

• Objection 1 (to Annie's claims): "It seems like Annie is just doing this for money. She's linking to her OnlyFans and to her Venmo, CashApp, and PayPal on X."
  • My response: I do think this is a reasonable objection. However, I think this behavior could be plausible in light of the timeline of Annie's life:
    • A 13-year-old Sam sexually assaults a 4-year-old Annie.
    • As Annie grows older, she does not explicitly remember this event (until 2020), but experiences a multitude of severe psychological and mental traumas and illnesses stemming from this early sexual abuse (see above.)
    • When she begins to remember this event in 2020, it takes a severe toll on her (and she had already been dealing with many mental health issues since the age of 4 even without explicitly remembering Sam's sexual assault of her (as the source of her psychological maladies)), and weakens her ability to financially support herself.
• Objection 2: "Annie hosted a podcast in 2018 with her brothers (Sam, Jack, and Max), but seems to have been unhappy that her brothers, particularly Sam, refused her request to share (the link to) her podcast (e.g. on Twitter.) This seems to potentially be part of a pattern of behavior wherein Annie tries to exploit the status of her brothers for her own gain."
  • My response: I do think that this objection holds merit. In her nymag article [LW · GW], Elizabeth Weil writes, "Among her various art projects, Annie makes a podcast called All Humans Are Human. The first Thanksgiving after their father’s death, all the brothers agreed to record an episode with her. Annie wanted to talk on air about the psychological phenomenon of projection: what we put on other people. The brothers steered the conversation into the idea of feedback — specifically, how to give feedback at work. After she posted the show online, Annie hoped her siblings, particularly Sam, would share it. He’d contributed to their brothers’ careers. Jack’s company, Lattice, had been through YC. “I was like, ‘You could just tweet the link. That would help. You don’t want to share your sister’s podcast that you came on?’” He did not. “Jack and Sam said it didn’t align with their businesses.”" I find this account to be plausible, yet do not think it entirely dispels the objection.
• Objection 3: "It seems Annie has been dealing with a variety of severe mental and psychological ailments throughout her life. She also seems to smoke/drink occasionally. It may well be that these claims are borne purely out these sorts of ailments of hers (or are of some other untrustworthy origin)."
  • My response: I think this is a valid concern to raise. As with much of the information presented here, I would be interested in hearing more from Annie.
• Objection 4: "While Annie's claims are concerning, and her online activity and presence across a variety of media platforms does potentially support her claims, Annie has provided no direct evidence to corroborate her claims. We ought to hold Sam Altman innocent until proven guilty."
  • My response: I think this is a valid position. I actually agree with it. Hopefully, as a result of this post, we potentially receive a more detailed account or perspective on this matter from Annie, Sam, or others close to this matter (e.g. Jack Altman, Max Altman, etc.)

Responding to Objections/Comments I've Seen From Others

It's been some time since I originally made my post, and I've seen a lot of comments, objections, and feedback from others. I"ll try to respond to some here.

 

• I responded to this on X (Twitter) a bit ago, but I'll respond here as well.
• I will provide a counterargument to each point that Kat Woods made in these Tweets. Before I do so, a few notes:
  • In my opinion, Kat Woods has not provided the key facts. Rather, she has provided a highly-filtered subset of the full set of facts/the full story.
    • I don't necessarily think this was done in bad faith though.
• So - my point-by-point response:

 

Kat Woods: "She only started accusing Sam after she wanted money and didn’t get it. She disputed the inheritance from a trust fund she felt she was owed after her father died. She blamed her family and started publicly attacking them, including Sam."

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

• "Wanted money and didn't get it" --
  • Going off of Annie's claims, this is a a misleading characterization. Annie's dad left money to her, but then Connie (in communication with Sam, Jack, Max) overrode Jerry's wishes and blocked Annie from receiving the money, right after Annie quit her job due to a variety of health issues that had cropped up for her that made it hard to work. Annie had told Connie (and, iiuc, Sam, Jack, and Max) before quitting her job that she was going to quit her job with the expectation that she would be receiving the money that Jerry had left to her, with the expectation being that this money would cover Annie's financial needs while she was temporarily unemployed. Connie then blocked Annie from receiving this money only after Annie had already quit her job. Connie knew this was going to happen. So, of course Annie "wanted" the money:
    • She was supposed to get the money -- Jerry had wanted her to have it
    • She was in a desperate financial situation
    • She had told Connie (and Sam, Jack, Max) that she expected that she'd receive the money before she quit her job, and then they withheld it from only after she had already quit her job, putting Annie in a precarious financial position in a way she had not at all been expecting.
• "She disputed the inheritance from a trust fund she felt she was owed after her father died. She blamed her family and started publicly attacking them, including Sam." --
  • I think this is innaccurate and a misleading characterization. As far as I know, the first time Annie directly spoke out against her relatives (Sam, Max, Jack, and Connie) was in these 3 posts that Annie published on X (formerly Twitter) on November 13, 2021. This was roughly two years after Connie, Sam, Max, and Jack blocked Annie from getting the money that her father (Jerry) left to her. Saying
  • "She only started accusing Sam after she wanted money and didn't get it" makes it sound like 1) Annie didn't have a valid reason for the money, she just "wanted" it, and 2) When Annie didn't get the money, she got on social media and started defaming her relatives on social media. Neither of these seem to be the case, as far as I can tell. As I detailed in the previous bullet point, Annie actually did have multiple valid reasons to expect the money: firstly, that her father had left it to her, and secondly, that she had told her family members that she was going to temporarily quit her job to try to fix her health issues with the expectation that she'd be receiving money, and (I presume) those relatives hadn't given any indication that they'd be withholding the money from Annie after she quit her job.
• "She disputed the inheritance from a trust fund she felt she was owed after her father died." --
  • "Felt she was owed" is a misleading characterization that makes it seem like Annie just felt entitled, for no good reason, to money that wasn't supposed to be hers. This is not at all the impression I get. My understanding is that Annie's father, in legal documents (will, 401k), indicated that he wanted Annie to receive money. Annie's relatives overrode these wishes, to block/withhold that money from getting to Annie.
• "She blamed her family and started publicly attacking them, including Sam." --
  • "Blamed" makes it seem like Annie blamed her family without a good reason. But that isn't what happened:
    • Annie's family (Connie, Sam, Jack, and Max) actively intervened to prevent Annie from seeing Jerry's will for ~1 year after his death
    • In 2019, Annie told her family she was going to quit her job, as she wanted time to try to cure her health problems (which were making it hard for her to stand $⟹$hard for her to do her job), and was expecting to receive money that her father had left. So, Annie's relatives:
      • knew that Annie expected to receive her father's money
      • knew she was going to quit her job
    • Then, only after Annie quit her job, did Annie's relatives then tell her that they were going to withhold the money from her.
      • This put Annie into a desperate financial situation. She was now jobless, low on money, and plagued by health problems that made it hard for her to get a new job.

 

 

Kat Woods: "- The accusation is based on “repressed memories” from when she was 4 that she “didn’t remember until she was 26” - right after she wanted her inheritance and was told she’d get it in monthly installments instead of a lump sum. She refused the conditions then went around saying she’d been denied her inheritance."

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️ 

 

• "The accusation is based on “repressed memories” from when she was 4 that she “didn’t remember until she was 26”" --
  • In my understanding, though Annie repressed these memories after nearly a decade of being sexually abused, she recalled bits and pieces of her memories for a while, though she didn't fully understand them when they recurred to her. This was happening for years before Annie was 26. Annie projectile vomited during consensual sex during college, back in 2012-2016. Annie published "Reclaiming my Memories" [AA18b] on November 11, 2018, when she was 24. In it, Annie notes that she used to think that her earliest memory was a panic attack, which she described as her "mind...disregarding the messages from my body, convinced she can think her way through feelings, and so my body goes into panic mode like she’s on strike", but that she now thinks that her earliest memory was something else, though she doesn't recall exactly what it is at that time. Annie didn't even know that her father had left 401k funds to her until ~summer 2019 -- months after she published Reclaiming my Memories. Annie didn't even see her father's Will until September 2019. It was only in summer 2019 that Annie, after quitting her job (with the expectation that she'd be receiving 401k funds left by her late father -- which she'd informed Connie, Sam, Jack, and Max of, prior to quitting her job), that she found out that Connie had overrode Jerry's wishes, and blocked Annie, who Jerry had named as the primary beneficiary of his 401k, from getting the funds left to her by Jerry in his 401k.
  • In September 2020, when Annie was 26, she began to have *daily PTSD flashbacks* (which continued for 18 months). Further, from what I've read in *The Body Keeps the Score*, PTSD flashbacks are very different than normal "memories" -- the victim is essentially *re-living* the past traumas, to the point that it feels to them that they are actually back in the point in space and time (for Annie: 1997-2006) where they were being abused.
  • It is not uncommon for victims of trauma and (especially) childhood sexual abuse to repress their memories for an extend period after the abuse initially occurred, only to recall them later on in life. See Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 5: literature on child sexual abuse and trauma.
• "right after she wanted her inheritance and was told she’d get it in monthly installments instead of a lump sum. She refused the conditions then went around saying she’d been denied her inheritance." --
  • Where did you see this? I am genuinely asking, as I don't recall seeing this?
    • (It's very possible that I saw this at some point, but just don't recall it right now, given how much information is in this post.)

 

 

Concluding Remarks

To be clear, in this post, I am not definitively stating that I believe Annie's claims. Annie, to the best of my knowledge, has not provided direct proof - the sort that would be usable in court - of the claims she's made of Sam Altman.

I currently hold that I do not know if Annie's claims are true or not, though I will note that her online activity have been self-consistent over a long period of time, and seems to match up with activity from Sam in a few places (e.g. in the podcast episode she recorded with him.) I currently cannot disprove Sam Altman's innocence, as I do not think I can say that he has been proven guilty. 

Rather, as previously stated, I am hoping to draw attention to a body of information that I think warrants further investigation, as I think that there is a nonzero probability that Annie is telling the truth, in whole or in part, and that this must be taken extremely seriously in light of the gravity of the claims she is making and the position of the person about whom she is making them.

Given the gravity of Sam Altman's position at the helm of the company leading the development of an artificial superintelligence which it does not yet know how to align -- to imbue with morality and ethics -- I feel Annie's claims warrant a far greater level of investigation than they've received thus far. 

I made an account on X (Twitter) (to reach out to Annie & Sam)

{In October 2023:} I made an X account (formerly "@prometheus5105", now "@pythagoras5015" -- I changed it for the reasons I provided here) where I responded to a recent post of Annie's (on X) asking her to confirm/deny the accuracy of my post.

Unfortunately, within minutes of creating my account, I received the following message: 

So, for now, my account is going to look suspicious, following only 1 account. Sorry.

Disclaimer

I have tried my best to meet the writing standards of this website, and to incorporate the advice given in the New User Guide [LW · GW]. I apologize in advance for any shortcomings in my writing, and am very much open to feedback and commentary.

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Next post

As noted at the beginning of this post, this post is the 6th post in a series of 7 posts that are meant to be read in order.

Now that you've read this post, you should read the 7th post ("Part 7") next:

Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 7: List of Annie's online accounts, references [LW · GW]

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