Seems like the founders of AI labs are ready to hear Peter Thiel’s pitch for a private bunker in New Zealand. According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, executives across Silicon Valley are growing increasingly paranoid and afraid of the ongoing public backlash against their technology—they were probably not comforted by the sight of body bags outside of their offices.
The body bags weren’t a threat, but rather part of a protest. According to Stephen Council at Business Insider, the corpse carriers appeared outside of OpenAI headquarters on Thursday as part of a protest over the company’s involvement with the Department of Defense. Reportedly placed there by Tesla Takedown and Stop the Money Pipeline, two groups that have been leading demonstrations against Big Tech forces, the body bags were accompanied by a banner with the names of the children killed when a US bomb hit an Iranian school. Per Council, the groups have planned similar displays to go up in front of Anthropic, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Tesla.
OpenAI workers found body bags outside their HQ this morning, placed in protest of tech companies’ work with the military.
The banner includes names of children killed in the US bombing of an Iranian school. Senators are pressing the DoD to release its findings about the strike.
[pic.twitter.com/RzY8QHkqtg]— Stephen Council (@stephencouncil)
[July 16, 2026]
While the protests are primarily about the tech industry’s extremely friendly relationship with the Pentagon and participation in both morally and legally dubious military and domestic surveillance campaigns, it seems like the execs probably struggle not to imagine the body bags are about them.
Per WSJ, tech executives have been on high alert since OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had his home firebombed and shot at earlier this year. The publication documented several incidents in which the companies have called the cops in response to apparent threats—though it seems they’re sometimes being a little overzealous about the whole thing. According to the Journal, a guy in Oklahoma got a visit from the cops after Anthropic reported him for telling a customer support chatbot that he’d be “coming to your office with my pistol” after it refused to allow him to speak to a real person.
Much of the piece recounts similar stories: People using violent rhetoric online to express their vitriol toward the Big Tech companies and AI labs—though, to be fair, there were at least a few accounts of people seemingly trying to sneak into the offices of AI firms. There’s just very little indication whether those people posed a credible threat to anyone. Regardless, executives are apparently taking it seriously and reportedly hiring additional security to stick with them around the clock.
There’s no doubt that AI is unpopular among the general population. Poll after poll shows that people believe the potential harms of artificial intelligence outweigh the benefits. An NBC News survey found just 26% of people had a positive view of AI, which made it less popular than Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And while names like Sam Altman don’t have the same public penetration as Mark Zuckerberg, the heads of AI labs are quickly catching up in public disdain.
Of course, dislike of a person or a technology does not amount to violence. And ideally, no one would die as a result of this standoff. Unfortunately, people already have. Anthropic’s model was reportedly used to identify targets as America launched its initial strikes on Iran. People have taken their own lives and the lives of others following bouts of apparent AI-induced psychosis. There have already been costs.
And the executives fronting the AI movement should wonder: Just how many times do you think that you can tacitly or explicitly threaten the livelihood of people before they respond negatively and, in some cases, violently?
Perhaps Altman can take comfort in knowing that when he says things like “I think AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world,” or “My job is to help people destroy jobs,” the public is taking him seriously. All he needs for evidence is to look outside his office.
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