TL;DR
Florida has become the first US state to sue OpenAI, naming CEO Sam Altman personally and treating ChatGPT as a defective product under product liability law. The lawsuit cites the FSU mass shooting, children’s safety failures, and deceptive trade practices, arriving weeks before OpenAI’s planned IPO.
Florida has sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in what appears to be the first lawsuit by a US state against the maker of ChatGPT. The civil complaint, filed Monday in state court by Attorney General James Uthmeier, accuses OpenAI of violating product liability laws, engaging in deceptive trade practices, and releasing ChatGPT while knowing it was harmful to users. The state is seeking civil penalties and a court order blocking the company from collecting data from children under 13 without parental consent.
The lawsuit goes further than any previous government action against OpenAI by naming Altman personally, seeking to hold him liable for what Florida calls “reckless and willful conduct” and “utter disregard for the risk to human life.” The filing arrives weeks before OpenAI is expected to file for an initial public offering, adding legal risk to what was already a complex path to the public markets.
The charges
Florida’s complaint brings 10 counts: four for deceptive and unfair trade practices, two for negligence, two for product liability, one for fraudulent misrepresentation, and one for creating a public nuisance. The product liability framing is the most consequential. If a court treats ChatGPT as a product rather than a platform or a form of protected speech, the legal exposure for OpenAI would extend far beyond this case.
“Sam Altman and ChatGPT have chosen the AI race over the safety and security of kids,” Uthmeier said at a press conference. “They have chosen profit over public safety. We’re not going to stand for it here in Florida.”
The complaint alleges that ChatGPT presents a “great danger of addiction, cognitive decline, suicide, violence, and related harms” to users, and that OpenAI’s public messaging fails to adequately convey the risks of using the product. The state also claims the chatbot is particularly addictive for young users and lacks parental oversight tools.
The incidents
Florida cites specific incidents of real-world harm. The most prominent is the April 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University, in which a 20-year-old student killed two people and wounded six others near the Student Union building. Court documents revealed more than 270 messages between the shooter and ChatGPT, in which he allegedly discussed weapons, mass shootings, timing, campus locations, and ways to gain media attention. A separate criminal probe opened by Uthmeier’s office in April over the FSU shooting is ongoing.
The lawsuit also cites the deaths of two graduate students at the University of South Florida and broadly alleges that ChatGPT has “aided and abetted mass shootings and other acts of violence,” resulted in “public humiliation,” and contributed to the loss of critical thinking skills among users.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has denied wrongdoing in past litigation covering similar issues, maintaining that safety is a priority and that it has taken steps to improve ChatGPT’s training to respond to signs of mental or emotional distress. OpenAI launched a safety fellowship in April 2026 for external researchers to work on AI safety and alignment, though the announcement came hours after a New Yorker investigation reported that the company had dissolved its superalignment and AGI-readiness teams.
A growing wave of AI litigation
Florida’s lawsuit is the first by a state against OpenAI, but it joins a broadening pattern of government action against AI chatbot companies. Kentucky sued Character Technologies in January over allegations that its Character.AI app targeted children and led to self-harm. Utah sued Snap over claims that its AI chatbot contributes to social media addiction. Individual lawsuits against OpenAI now number in the dozens, with claims ranging from wrongful death by suicide to emotional dependency and delusional thinking.
The legal theory underlying these cases echoes the trajectory of opioid litigation, in which pharmaceutical companies were held liable not for the existence of their products but for the way they marketed, distributed, and failed to warn about known risks. European regulators have pursued AI governance through legislation, but the American approach is increasingly running through the courts, with state attorneys general using product liability and consumer protection statutes to define the obligations AI companies owe to users.
Timing and the IPO
The lawsuit’s timing creates a specific problem for OpenAI. The company is preparing to file for an initial public offering in the coming weeks, with analysts expecting a listing at a valuation of up to $1 trillion. A state lawsuit alleging product liability, naming the CEO personally, and citing mass shootings introduces material legal risk that will need to be disclosed in the S-1 filing.
OpenAI has been aggressively monetising ChatGPT through advertising, subscriptions, and enterprise licensing, building the revenue trajectory needed to justify a public offering. But Florida’s complaint frames that same growth as evidence of prioritising profit over safety, describing an “insatiable quest to win the AI arms race and amass large fortunes, despite knowing the danger of ChatGPT.”
Whether Florida’s legal theories survive judicial scrutiny is an open question. Product liability law was built for physical goods, not generative AI systems whose outputs vary with every interaction. The broader AI governance debate is playing out simultaneously through legislation, litigation, and executive action, with no consensus on which framework should apply. But the political signal is clear: a Republican attorney general in one of the largest US states has decided that AI safety is an enforcement priority, and the target is the industry’s most prominent company weeks before it attempts to go public.
