Transcript
0:03 Today we have a major development in a disturbing legal battle that has been developing in the background of the tech industry for the past few years. On one side sits Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and arguably one of the chief architects of the future of humanity. On the other side is his estranged sister Annie Altman, who has been locked in a grueling civil battle with her billionaire brother. For years, Sam has allegedly pressured mainstream media not to seriously scrutinize the allegations in Annie's lawsuit, even going so far as to scrub her entire existence from early iterations of chatt. Now, I've been able to independently confirm this reporting.
0:40 Elizabeth Why, who wrote the now infamous Oenheimer of our age profile on Sam for New York magazine, confirmed in a leaked text that the editor-inchief of the magazine refused to buckle under pressure from OpenAI's PR chief, Hannah Wong, stating in reference to Annie, quote, "It was naive to think that they could keep this hidden, and everyone needs to adjust themselves to reality." But yesterday, Annie's legal battle with Sam came to an abrupt end when federal judge Zachary Bluestone threw out her lawsuit on procedural grounds before a jury ever had the chance to examine the substance of her claims. So, joining us today to react to all of this is friend of the show, Annie Altman herself. Annie, welcome to the show. Thank you, James. And thank you for being one of very few journalists who's been brave for years to talk about the simple fact of my existence, let alone everything else here.
1:30 >> Of course, one would think that most journalists would want to do this, but unfortunately, we don't necessarily live in that climate. So, to that, I do want to start by addressing the reason for your case being dismissed. Now, according to US District Judge Zachary Bluestone, the reason why he ruled to dismiss the case was because, quote, "She," referring to you, Annie, had refused to appear for an independent medical examination despite warnings that a failure to do so would result in the case's dismissal. So, I guess the obvious question here would be why didn't you appear?
2:06 >> So, I did appear for one IME. I did a independent medical exam with one provider already. So this is about a second medical exam. So I feel like that is a big part to clear up here in headlines that people were publishing that they didn't even reach out to me about is that it was a missed second medical exam. not one not missing or refusing to do one entirely.
2:40 The other point of this is that I had so a whole backstory part of this case is that I was prosay representing myself over the summer right after I had a major orthopedic surgery on my ankle where they removed lots of scar tissue and other inflamed tissues that my years of physical therapy were not able to fully address. and they put in a long-term implanted support inside my ankle. And that happened right at right at the beginning of the summer and also right before my original counsel left the case. And so I was prosay for a few months and I wrote a motion for an extension of time saying I'm having this major surgery and looking for a new lawyer and I'm having some surgery recovery complications because of all of this. I actually did a conference for that case one week after major ankle surgery while still on painkillers and nerve blockers from that orthopedic surgery and all of the stresses were more than my body could handle and led to a lot of surgery recovery complications. I also have Ellers Donlo syndrome and other genetic conditions that predispose pre predispose my body to being more sensitive to a lot of things and more likely to have things like surgery recovery complications.
4:12 So, I am still having the surgery recovery complications that I haven't had a break to fully address that my prosay motion for an extension of time was denied by this judge for. And I offered an accommodation that was also not accepted to say that I am open to do a second medical exam virtually because I cannot currently travel or that I am open to pay for the second medical examiner to come fly here since I can't fly but they could.
4:52 And both of those options were denied and I wasn't given any reasonable accommodation. >> Right. Got it. So just to clarify, you had offered options because you can't fly for them to fly out their chosen independent physician to you to conduct this independent medical exam and that was denied. >> Correct. So, a very long story here, but to break it down more more succinctly here. I did one medical exam.
5:25 I had some kind of flu and could not do the second one and have a doctor's note about that from my appointment. I have a doctor's note from my orthopedist about how I cannot travel to do a medical exam. I offered to have the medical examiner come here on my payment of them or to have a virtual medical exam. Since these are mental health examinations only, they're not examining my Ellers's Donos, my orthopedic surgery, any of my physical health. But any of the accommodations I requested of me paying for them to come here were were turned down. So yeah, to me this seems like kind of relevant context in terms of the reporting because nothing I saw in reviewing a bunch of different articles yesterday reporting this development had mentioned, you know, your medical situation or the fact that you had offered alternatives to comply with their requests. So, I'm just wondering if any mainstream media outlet has reached out to you or your lawyer in the past day or so to clarify your medical situation because I have, like I said, seen outlets report that your lawyer, I guess, declined to comment or did not return attempts to contact her. No, unfortunately and very disappointingly here, you are the only person who has jumped in to give me a voice and a platform to talk about what happened, which is why I'm happy to provide you my medical notes and doctor's notes here about all of this.
7:05 No major news outlets have contacted me or my new council about any of the things they published. And to my knowledge, none of them have published about my major orthopedic surgery or Eller's Donlos, polycystic ovarian, IBS, all the related syndromes here. And in fact, there's a St. Louis publication that put out a piece yesterday claiming that they reached out to my lawyer and didn't get any response from her.
7:41 But my lawyer didn't get any call from them and even showed me her full call log and voicemails from yesterday. And not a single news outlet reached out to my new council of record who her email and phone numbers entered into the case and on the record and literally zero news outlets reached out to ask her. And the only reason a comment was given to this St. Lewis magazine was several people sending it to me asking, "Hey, did you see this? It says your lawyer didn't comment." And so then I scrambled part of being so sickly and tired today of scrambling to figure out what happened there. How could they publish something saying they called her when they didn't? Or how can we get them a comment or what what just happened?
8:32 >> That does sound super sketchy. And in a lot of the research I was doing yesterday, just compiling some of these articles and what they're saying and each I think pretty much each one of them, they kind of had at least maybe sometimes even in the sub headline or within the main body of the article something to the effect that Sam and the rest of your family have alleged that you're struggling with mental health challenges and then that you only began to accuse him on social media after they rejected your demands for money. So, I'm just wondering if you want to respond to those allegations directly.
9:06 >> I think the case being completely dismissed and me still being here talking about it and looking to make the world safer for other survivors of the same abuses I've been through. I think in a weird way, the only two things that have been said about me, which are, oh, Annie's crazy, and oh, Annie's doing this for money, both of those illusions have been shattered. Now, I do have a case about money, and it's my dad's money in my name. It's the trust that my dad set up and put that was withheld from me for 6 years while I was a disabled homeless sex worker, gaining the scar tissue in my ankle that was then later surgically removed.
9:50 I I wish that case would get more publicity and I wish people would see and talk about that one that again that case is about money from my dad and my name but the the childhood case and saying oh this one is just about about money when there isn't even this discussion on my physical health it is all putting I mean even in the New York magazine piece which I'm eternally grateful for because they were so deeply pressured. They also did not include my physical health which they knew about at the time and the ankle pains and the things I was dealing with and already in. So I mean my response to a lot of this is that real human people can and have already seen through the nonsense.
10:44 We've seen this play before where there's one person talking about someone's actions and there's another person making allegations about that person's mental health. There have been zero comments made about my actions because those would only show me being mentally sound and my life revolving around physical therapy and my physical health for years in being so disabled. After this interview with you today, I have my orthopedist follow-up appointment and I have physical therapy. And that's most of my days is doctor's appointments, my daily physical therapy things.
11:27 I it's really disappointing to see so many news outlets jump on the the bandwagon of, oh, let's let a wealthy person that the internet calls a psychopath, let's let them control the narrative about their victim's mental health rather than letting the narrative be about people's actions.
11:57 Yeah, I mean that's >> long answer again. >> I imagine this has been a very stressful ordeal for you over the past number of years. So, you actually I'm curious, did did Sam or his team ever approach you for like a settlement or some kind of NDA to resolve this outside of court? Because I'm sure he doesn't want this to be dragging that he's pressured magazines to not publish your existence. So, has he tried to go that route?
12:25 I can't say too much there. The only piece I can say that was interesting and surprising to me was an attempt to use the trust case of my dad's money being withheld from me for 6 years and still being withheld and connected in with hydroine. An attempt to use that case to make this other case go away. But I I didn't fully understand it and I still don't probably because you can't use your dead dad's money to have your sexual abuse lawsuit against your little sister go away.
13:01 >> So, the last thing I wanted to ask you was basically or is basically what's next for you? Because from my understanding, I'm not a legal expert or anything, but when the judge dismissed your case with prejudice, that means that there's no formal, you know, court path going forward. So, are you planning to, I guess, appeal this procedural ruling or move on from it? Like, what's your plan here? >> I'm not sure yet. I'm still deciding.
13:29 there is an option for an appeal. And given the medical notes I have from multiple different doctors about my physical inability to fly and all of the records I have to show this is a physical health issue, not the mental health one that the media has let mean people spin things into instead of talking about the mental health of the mean people. I'm not sure. I'm still looking into my options on if I want to appeal or not.
14:01 And my main focus still, as I've been publicly saying for two months now, is to get my deposition released. I was deposed the end of August and consented to having that released as soon as it was allowed. And the protective order of the case was very clear that whoever gives a testimony gets to designate their testimony as public or private. And I gave that testimony with the understanding that I got to designate it as public.
14:32 And it has been the most upsetting part of this whole system here that somehow it has still been blocked. And so I am still working on how I can have my deposition be released. And then also figuring if the court is going to somehow still block a deposition that should have been released at the end of August that I might I might have not done if I knew it would have been blocked. I I was completely under the understanding from the protective order that I got to choose what I did with it. And I'm not trying to choose what other people do with theirs. But that is still a big focus to have my deposition released.
15:17 And if it is unable to come out that way to make sure that my experiences are heard in other ways so that other people who may have had similar experiences feel more safety to come forward. >> Yeah. Just that just seems like you know in reference to your deposition another attempt to silence your voice or keep you from or keep people from directly hearing what you have to say. So give you James, it's and it's been wild to see the the Strerand effect of I did not expect my deposition to go so viral when I posted it. I expected it to get some traction of people who had been following along with the case to watch, but I I did not expect it to go viral, let alone as viral as it went. And the the comments have been getting me through of people being aware of bilateral stimulation and tapping and EFT and the knitting is bilateral stimulation and and also people seeing exactly what you said that it's it says a lot to block someone from sharing about their basic experiences.
16:31 And that's all I've been attempting to do here. And I think in a weird way that the dismissal shows that even more clearly and again cuts through the of, "Oh, she's crazy. Oh, she's doing this for money." Nope. I'm still here sick and dealing with physical therapy. But I'm I'm still here talking about my experiences like I've been doing 5 years ago before there was a lawsuit and will continue to do. I do also still have my second lawsuit about my dad's trust that was withheld for six years and I am still looking and have not yet found the explanation for how Sam's company that Max and Jack, my other two siblings worked for him for, hydroine, is in our dad's trust somehow. So that lawsuit is still ongoing and has still received little to no coverage anywhere even though in the filings it mentions hydroine and open AI and all sorts of relevant things.
17:37 So I'll still be focusing on that and still be focusing on all of my physical therapy and ankle re rehabilitations. Adjusting to my new bionic ankle here. No, no big deal. >> Yeah. Well, we're glad you're still here and still trying to push back against, you know, all the powers that be. So, where can people follow you to hear more of what you have to say directly? >> You can find me on most every single social media, Annie Alman 108, which is my birthday. my podcast, All Humans Are Human, is out on all the places and my website, allhumans are human.com, you can listen to it on as well.
18:19 I have a poetry book. I have an Etsy shop if you want to buy a shirt that say bullies need better hobbies. listen, we I we process with comedy here. And I have a YouTube channel, some standup, and some other things if you want to hear Peter Teal song parody on my YouTube. I also have currently a GoFundMe for the trust case. And I also have Emma Katherine very kindly made a petition on change.org for my childhood case to release my deposition. So, lots of links. I finally just made a link tree from another friend's encouragement so I can share that with you that has all of these things listed. And I'm I'm still here. I'm going to still be here. I am very happy to be alive and to be here. I am happy you're happy to be alive and be here. And I I can't thank you enough for your bravery, James, for actually letting me speak and treating me like a human instead of treating me either like I don't exist or infantilizing me like a child.
19:29 >> Well, thank you for saying that. We all are just trying to do our best and like I said, we're we're happy to have you anytime. Everybody, go follow Annie and best of luck and stay safe out there. >> Thank you. You too. Thank you so much, James. >> That is it for me today. If you haven't seen my full investigation into Sam Alman, I'd highly recommend checking that out. I will link it in the description and in the outro. Also, if this is your first time hearing from Annie, what are your thoughts? You know, I think in cases like this, it's important to identify these kinds of fact patterns and trust your intuition.
20:05 So, let me know what you think in the comment section below. If you want to support my journalism, you can do so by going to my website, 5149jameslee.com. Sign up to become a member, or there's also an option to give a onetime donation. No subscription necessary. Or you can also buy some merch. But if not, no worries at all. Please do me a big favor. Hype this video, give it a thumbs up, share it, subscribe to the channel, turn on that notification bell so you can be the first to know when my next video drops. As always, thank you so much for your time and I will see you in the next one.
20:30 >> Incredible amount of power at this moment in time. Why should we trust you? >> you shouldn't.