Paxton Sues OpenAI, Saying ChatGPT Harms Texans and Children. Here Is What the Lawsuit Asks For
The attorney general wants a court to block minors from ChatGPT and require outside approval of new models. OpenAI says it builds safeguards. The suit lands as Paxton runs for the U.S. Senate with Elon Musk as his biggest backer.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has taken his fight with Big Tech to the most popular artificial intelligence chatbot in the world.
Paxton sued OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and its chief executive, Sam Altman, on Friday in Collin County district court, The Texas Tribune reported. The state claims OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as safe and reliable while failing to protect Texans, including children, from its harms, according to the attorney general’s press release.
What Texas claims
The 67-page lawsuit centers on the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Courthouse News Service reported. It also accuses OpenAI of violating the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, or SCOPE Act, a newer Texas law that requires stricter age verification and parental consent systems for digital platforms.
The attorney general’s office says OpenAI released ChatGPT products without sufficient parental controls, age verification or safety testing. Its press release does not mince words: "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 suit cites at least eight instances of people who committed violent acts consulting ChatGPT, Courthouse News reported. Among them, it says, 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.
"Every investigation into adolescent use of ChatGPT leads to the same result," wrote Jonathan Stone, chief of the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division. He said the chatbot "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.’"
The lawsuit opens with a 2015 quote attributed to Altman: "AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies."
What Texas wants
Paxton is asking for a broad injunction. According to the Tribune, it would require OpenAI to block minors from using its product and to get approval from a court-appointed evaluator before releasing any new models, among other restrictions.
"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."
What OpenAI says
An OpenAI spokesperson told the Tribune 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 campaign and the Musk question
The suit comes 11 days before Election Day. Paxton is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, running against Democrat James Talarico.
In the last year, Paxton has sued or settled with Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and Roblox under the state’s consumer protection laws, the Tribune reported. As with much of his high-profile tech litigation, the state is represented by outside lawyers, including Ashley Keller and Tony Buzbee, Paxton’s lawyer during his 2023 impeachment proceedings.
There is also a rivalry in the background. Elon Musk, who helped found OpenAI and left in 2018 after a bitter conflict with Altman, now runs a competing AI company, xAI. He is the largest single donor behind Paxton’s Senate campaign, putting nearly $200 million behind the candidate, according to the Tribune. Musk’s own lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman did not succeed.
The Tribune also noted that Musk’s chatbot, Grok, has faced its own criticism over users making "deepfake" pornography from photos, including of children. California’s attorney general has opened an investigation. Texas has taken no action against Musk.
Musk’s influence in Texas politics is already a campaign issue. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for governor, is suing Gov. Greg Abbott for his office’s Musk records.
What it means for families
Two things can be true at once. The questions in this lawsuit are serious, and so is the timing.
Parents have good reason to worry about children pouring their hearts out to a machine that imitates a friend. A chatbot cannot love a child, pray with a child or tell a child the truth about who he is. Holding a company to its safety promises is a fair use of consumer protection law, and Texas already requires digital platforms to have age verification and parental consent systems under the SCOPE Act.
But voters are entitled to ask whether the state’s top lawyer applies that standard evenly, including to companies tied to his biggest donor. A court will now weigh the evidence. In the meantime, no lawsuit replaces a parent who knows what is on a child’s phone.
