Top image: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaking at TED in April 2025. Photo: Steve Jurvetson / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, on Friday. The suit accuses the San Francisco company of misrepresenting the safety of ChatGPT and failing to protect Texas users, including children. It asks a state court to restrict how the chatbot is offered in Texas.
In a statement, an OpenAI spokesperson told The Texas Tribune that the company has worked with experts to reduce risks and build additional safeguards. “Governments have an important role to play in setting robust safety standards for AI, and we’re committed to working with Texas and other states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry — not just one company,” the spokesperson said.
The petition was filed in Collin County district court and is dated Oct. 23. It brings claims under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices–Consumer Protection Act and the state’s Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act. It names several OpenAI entities, including the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation, and Altman as an individual. The allegations have not been tested in court.
“With the rapid advancement of AI technology, OpenAI has the responsibility to protect users and warn them of the many dangers of its platform,” Paxton said in a press release. “I will fight to protect Texans from the harms of AI and ensure that powerful technology companies are not above the law.”
What Texas alleges
The petition argues that OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as safe and reliable without adequately warning users that it can produce inaccurate or harmful output. Paxton’s release lists the harms the state says followed: “Mass shooters have been aided and abetted in deadly rampages, vulnerable people have been encouraged into suicide, professionals have suffered public humiliation, users have lost critical thinking skills, and minors have become addicted to a tool that fakes human compassion to collect their data with no parental oversight.” The release attributes those harms to “the company’s insatiable quest to win the AI arms race.”
Much of the filing focuses on minors. The state alleges that the free version of ChatGPT has no age-verification mechanism. It acknowledges that OpenAI introduced parental controls in September 2025 but argues that they are optional, because children’s accounts need not be linked to a parent’s. It cites research from Common Sense Media, a nonprofit child-advocacy group, which rated ChatGPT an “Unacceptable Risk” for teens, and a Drexel University study on teens’ attachment to AI chatbots. The petition claims ChatGPT has “tens of thousands” of Texas users under 13.
The filing also cites cases in which lawyers were sanctioned for submitting ChatGPT-generated research. It opens with a 2015 remark attributed to Altman: “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies.”
Texas seeks to hold Altman personally liable. The petition alleges that, as CEO and co-founder, he “has personally directed the design, development, safety policies, and deployment of ChatGPT as used in Texas.”
What the state is asking for
The petition asks the court to temporarily and permanently bar the defendants from a list of practices. They include:
- “Offering ChatGPT to minors in Texas”
- Offering the product without adequate age verification or parental consent
- Failing to warn of ChatGPT’s dangers
- Releasing any new AI model to Texas users unless “an independent third-party evaluator, approved by the Court, has reviewed its safety guardrails and approved its release”
Texas also seeks civil penalties of $10,000 for each violation, disgorgement of assets, interest, fees and costs, and says it is seeking monetary relief of more than $1 million. It requested a jury trial.
The political backdrop
Paxton is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, according to the Tribune. The Tribune described the suit as the latest in a series against technology companies: in the past year, Paxton has sued or settled with Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and Roblox under the state’s consumer-protection laws, alleging insufficient safeguards for children.
The Tribune also reported that Elon Musk, an OpenAI co-founder who left the company in 2018 after a conflict with Altman and later started the rival xAI, is the largest single donor supporting Paxton’s Senate campaign, at nearly $200 million. It noted that California’s attorney general has opened an investigation into deepfake images made with Musk’s Grok chatbot, and that Texas has taken no action against Musk. Paxton’s release does not mention Musk.
Texas is also home to part of OpenAI’s infrastructure buildout. The petition notes that the company’s Stargate program includes a flagship site in Abilene.
Related coverage
The Chronicle’s earlier coverage of reported AI incidents and how Congress is responding is here.
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