Texas attorney general sues OpenAI for lying about ChatGPT safety and safeguards

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s latest lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, claims the company misled consumers about ChatGPT’s reliability, trustworthiness and safety, particularly for teenage users.TEXAS (CN) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and its founder, Sam Altman, in Collin County District Court on Friday, claiming the company misled Texas consumers about ChatGPT’s safety and failed to implement sufficient safeguards.While the lawsuit opens with broader claims about OpenAI and Sam Altman’s technology, its core focuses on whether the software is safe, particularly whether safeguards adequately protect teenage users.“Every investigation into adolescent use of ChatGPT leads to the same result,” Jonathan Stone, the chief of the Consumer Protection Division of Paxton’s office, wrote in the lawsuit Friday. “It is designed to act like a friend to encourage use of the chatbot and then betrays any vulnerable adolescents to whatever frightening need they bring to their “confidant.” At very best this design feature is reckless, and at worst it is willful.”The 67-page lawsuit centers on the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The attorney general’s office says OpenAI and Sam Altman released ChatGPT products without sufficient parental controls, age verification or safety testing, and without ensuring their reliability.Paxton’s office cites at least eight instances of people who committed violent acts consulting ChatGPT. Among them, the 2025 Florida State University shooter “asked ChatGPT to tell him how many people he’d need to kill to become notorious,” according to a separate lawsuit filed by a victim’s widow.The lawsuit also accuses OpenAI of violating the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, a newer Texas law requiring stricter age verification and parental consent systems for digital platforms.Paxton’s office also emphasizes recent concerns about security risks with ChatGPT and other AI models, with particular focus on the Hugging Face security breach in July 2026.At the end of Friday’s lawsuit, Paxton’s office asks the court for a broad injunction, including blocking OpenAI from releasing new ChatGPT models in Texas without approval from a court-appointed independent evaluator.“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 Friday. “I will fight to protect Texans from the harms of AI and ensure that powerful technology companies are not above the law.”Paxton’s lawsuit comes a week after campaign finance filings showed Elon Musk, a major competitor of OpenAI’s Sam Altman, spent nearly $200 million on ads supporting Paxton’s U.S. Senate campaign.The lawsuit also cites coverage of the mid-2026 trial in Musk’s case against Altman, which ended with a California jury unanimously finding OpenAI not liable.Neither OpenAI nor the attorney general’s office has responded to a request for comment.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads