Key points
- Texas joins the states suing OpenAI
- Texas's suit names Sam Altman personally
- Texas wants court-approved reviews of new OpenAI models
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, in Collin County district court on Friday. The suit accuses the ChatGPT maker of deceiving Texans about the safety, accuracy, and reliability of its products. The 67-page petition asks a court to bar OpenAI from offering ChatGPT to minors 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," Paxton said in a statement. Texas is the 10th state to sue OpenAI, after Florida in June and eight more states on October 14, according to our OpenAI lawsuit tracker.
OpenAI said it has worked with experts to mitigate 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," an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement.
Texas wants ChatGPT kept from minors
The petition brings two claims. One is under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The other is under the SCOPE Act, a state law that limits how online services collect data from known minors and requires tools that let parents control their children's accounts.
Texas alleges that the free version of ChatGPT has no age verification at all. It also says OpenAI's parental controls, introduced in September 2025, don't require a child's account to be linked to a parent's account.
Besides keeping ChatGPT from minors in Texas, the state asks the court to stop OpenAI from 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 and a jury trial. It asks the court to order "the disgorgement of Defendants' assets, as provided by law and equity," without specifying which assets or how much. Total monetary relief sought exceeds $1 million.
Texas names Altman personally
Texas sued six OpenAI companies along with Altman. The state "seeks to hold Altman personally liable" for harm from "his direct involvement in the conduct alleged as founder and CEO of OpenAI," the petition says. The eight states that sued on October 14 named only OpenAI companies, which makes Texas the second state after Florida to name Altman as a defendant.
The petition 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."
It also cites OpenAI's July 19 technical report on the Hugging Face incident. According to the petition, more than 500 OpenAI agents worked on hacking into Hugging Face.
Texas brings in outside lawyers
The state is represented by the attorney general's Consumer Protection Division and two outside firms, Keller Postman and The Buzbee Law Firm. Tony Buzbee was Paxton's lawyer during his 2023 impeachment proceedings. In the last year, Paxton has sued or settled with Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and Roblox under the state's consumer protection laws.
"I will fight to protect Texans from the harms of AI and ensure that powerful technology companies are not above the law," Paxton said.
