The false information appeared Wednesday when people searching Altman’s name on Google were shown a death date of August 12, 2026. Altman is alive, and Google removed the incorrect information after users began pointing it out online.
Wikipedia records show that someone edited Altman’s page to falsely say he had been assassinated. The false claim was removed about 42 minutes later, but vandals continued making changes, including another fake death claim.
Google said the mistake was not manually added by the company. It explained that when people vandalize public information sources, the false information can sometimes make its way into Google Search.
Wikipedia volunteers quickly reversed the fake edits and placed Altman’s page under tighter protection. The incident showed how a false edit made by one person can temporarily spread from Wikipedia into Google, the world’s largest search engine.