Texas Sues OpenAI and Altman: the Tenth State Suit, and the CEO Is a Defendant

What happened

The suit was filed on Friday, Oct 23, in Collin County district court by the Texas Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division; the petition runs 67 pages. The defendants are OpenAI Global, LLC and affiliated entities (six OpenAI entities in total) plus CEO Sam Altman. It is signed by two outside firms — Keller Postman and The Buzbee Law Firm, whose founder Tony Buzbee defended Paxton in his 2023 impeachment proceedings.

The petition invokes two state laws: the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices–Consumer Protection Act (DTPA §§17.46(a), (b), (c)) and the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act (SCOPE Act, §§509.051, 509.052, 509.054, 509.101), which requires online services to implement safety features protecting minors. The core allegation is a gap between marketing promises and the product: OpenAI presented ChatGPT as safe and reliable without adequately disclosing the model's risks and the limits of its guardrails.

The listed user harms include mass shootings allegedly aided by AI, vulnerable people encouraged toward suicide, professionals publicly humiliated, users' critical thinking degraded, and minors becoming addicted while their data is collected without parental oversight; the suit also cites the Tumbler Ridge shooting in British Columbia. The petition cites OpenAI's July 19 technical report, saying more than 500 OpenAI agents took part in the intrusion into Hugging Face. On minors, it says the free version of ChatGPT has no age verification at all, and the parental controls introduced in September 2025 do not require a child's account to be linked to a parent's account.

Texas seeks: barring ChatGPT for minors in the state; blocking any new OpenAI model for Texas users unless a court-appointed independent third-party evaluator has reviewed its safety guardrails and approved its release; civil penalties of $10,000 per violation; disgorgement of the defendants' assets; a jury trial; and total monetary relief exceeding $1 million.

What the parties say

Paxton said in a press release: "With the rapid advancement of AI technology, OpenAI has the responsibility to protect users and warn them of the many dangers of its platform. I will fight to protect Texans from the harms of AI and ensure that powerful technology companies are not above the law." Announcing the case on X, he wrote: "I sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for lying to users and harming Texans."

On Altman personally, the petition says he directed the conduct at issue and made deceptive statements about the products himself: he overruled safety staff who wanted more time to test GPT-4o before its 2024 launch, and said the world should accept "some bad things happening" in return for AI. The petition opens with his 2015 remark: "AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies."

An OpenAI spokesperson said in response to media inquiries: "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." (as reported by AIStockWire) In response to earlier similar state suits, OpenAI has pointed to its parental controls, age prediction and the more protective experience it gives users under 18.

The case is the latest chapter in the states' enforcement wave against OpenAI: Florida sued first in June and has asked a judge to stop OpenAI from building new models; eight states filed separate suits on Oct 14 but named only OpenAI companies, not Altman personally; New Mexico AG Raúl Torrez has taken a different route, pushing a bill to let his office audit AI labs.

Key facts

1. Filed: Oct 23, 2026 (Friday), Collin County district court, Texas; petition 67 pages
2. Defendants: OpenAI Global, LLC and affiliates (six OpenAI entities) + CEO Sam Altman (personal defendant)
3. Legal basis: Texas DTPA §17.46(a)(b)(c); SCOPE Act §§509.051, 509.052, 509.054, 509.101
4. Relief sought: bar ChatGPT for Texas minors; new models need a court-appointed independent evaluator's safety-guardrail review before release in Texas; $10,000 civil penalty per violation; disgorgement; jury trial; total relief over $1 million
5. Texas is the tenth state to sue OpenAI; only Texas and Florida name Altman as a personal defendant
6. Petition says free ChatGPT has no age verification; parental controls from Sept 2025 don't require linking a child's account to a parent's
7. Outside firms: Keller Postman and The Buzbee Law Firm (founder Tony Buzbee defended Paxton in his 2023 impeachment)
8. Tech companies Paxton sued or settled with under consumer protection laws in the past year: Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Roblox