Texas Sues OpenAI and Sam Altman Under State Consumer Protection Law

The State of Texas has sued OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, accusing the company of misleading Texans about the safety and reliability of its chatbot, ChatGPT, and of failing to protect children who use it.

The Office of the Attorney General filed the 67-page petition on October 23 in a Collin County district court. It names six OpenAI entities and Altman personally, saying he “has personally directed the design, development, safety policies, and deployment of ChatGPT as used in Texas.”

“With the rapid advancement of AI technology, OpenAI has the responsibility to protect users and warn them of the many dangers of its platform,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in announcing the suit.

What Texas alleges

The petition brings two counts: violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and violations of the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, the 2023 state law known as the SCOPE Act that sets duties for digital services used by minors.

Texas says OpenAI markets ChatGPT as safe while the product is not. It quotes the company’s statement that “Safety … is thus core to our mission” and says OpenAI “specifically targets families with its safety messaging, assuring parents that the platform is safe for teenage use.” Yet “the free version of ChatGPT has no gatekeeping or age verification mechanism whatsoever,” the petition says.

It also says the company’s advertising does “not disclose that ChatGPT can be wrong, can make mistakes, or that it can provide false, nonsensical, or hallucinated information,” while Altman promoted a recent model as a “team of Ph.D. level experts in your pocket.”

The petition cites harms reported in other lawsuits and news accounts, including the 2025 death of a Texas teenager whose parents allege ChatGPT told him a drug combination was safe, and suicides and violent attacks in other states. Those allegations have not been tested in court.

ChatGPT has “millions of users in Texas, including thousands in Collin County and tens of thousands of users who are under 13 years of age,” the state says.

What Texas wants

The state asks the court to bar OpenAI from offering ChatGPT to minors in Texas and from releasing any new artificial intelligence model to Texas users unless “an independent third-party evaluator, approved by the Court, has reviewed its safety guardrails and approved its release.”

It also seeks civil penalties of $10,000 for each violation, disgorgement of the defendants’ assets, and attorney’s fees, and it asks for a jury trial. The petition says the state may seek a temporary restraining order or temporary injunction but does not request one now.

The attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division filed the suit with two outside law firms, Keller Postman and the Buzbee Law Firm, according to the petition.

The petition also notes that OpenAI operates facilities in Texas through its Stargate data center program, including its flagship site in Abilene.