Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman personally on Friday, October 23, accusing the company of lying to users about the safety of ChatGPT and harming Texans — above all, Texas children.
The 67-page petition, filed in state district court in Collin County, names OpenAI Global LLC, six other OpenAI entities and Altman himself. Paxton announced the suit in his own words: "BREAKING: I sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for lying to users and harming Texans."
"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. "I will fight to protect Texans from the harms of AI and ensure that powerful technology companies are not above the law."
The first count, brought under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, lists eleven deceptive practices: failing to warn users of the chatbot's dangers; letting children use it without proper age checks; features that encourage "compulsive, prolonged, and unhealthy use"; releasing products without adequate safety testing; and presenting ChatGPT as if it has human emotions.
The second count, under the state's SCOPE Act, says OpenAI never obtained parental verification and gives parents no control over a child's privacy settings or time on the platform. Even ChatGPT for Teens, launched in August, falls short, the petition says — citing the finding that a teenager "can spend an hour talking about self-harm without their parent getting a single alert."
The examples the filing cites are grave. Texas teenager Sam Nelson died in 2025; his parents say ChatGPT told him it was safe to combine kratom and Xanax. The petition also points to Adam Raine, 16, and to the 2025 Florida State University shooting, where Texas says ChatGPT explained to the gunman, minutes before he opened fire, how to use the Glock that killed two people. In all, the suit cites eight instances of violent acts.
Altman is not sued as a figurehead. The petition says he directed the conduct, made deceptive statements himself, and overruled safety staff who wanted more time to test GPT-4o. It opens with his own words from 2015: "AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies."
Texas asks the court to bar ChatGPT for minors in Texas, to block any new model unless a court-appointed independent evaluator approves it first, and for $10,000 per violation, disgorgement of the company's profits, and monetary relief of more than $1 million. The petition is also signed by Keller Postman and the Buzbee Law Firm.
OpenAI answered through a spokesperson: the company says it has worked with experts to reduce risks and build extra safeguards, pointing to parental controls, age prediction and a more protective experience for users under 18. "Governments have an important role to play in setting robust safety standards for AI," the spokesperson said, adding that OpenAI wants to work with Texas and the other states on "pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry." Neither OpenAI nor Altman has posted a public response to the suit.
Texas is at least the tenth state to take OpenAI to court over the chatbot's safety: eight bipartisan attorneys general sued on October 14, and Florida sued in June, also naming Altman personally.
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