Texas Is Suing OpenAI and Sam Altman, and It Wants a Court-Picked Evaluator to Approve Every New Model

Texas wants a judge standing between OpenAI and its next launch. On Friday, October 23, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman personally, accusing them of marketing ChatGPT as safe while it harmed Texans.

The case was filed in Collin County district court under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the same consumer protection law Paxton has used over the past year to sue or settle with Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and Roblox over child safety.

The remedy is the real story

Lawsuits against AI companies are piling up. What sets this one apart is what Texas is asking for. The state wants a wide ranging injunction that would require OpenAI to block minors from ChatGPT and to secure approval of any new model from a court-appointed evaluator before release, among other restrictions.

In practice, that would mean no new model ships without independent safety sign off. A single state court would gain a say over the release schedule of one of the most valuable companies in tech.

A long list of allegations

The complaint 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."

From there, Paxton's office lays out a sweeping case. It claims mass shooters have been "aided and abetted in deadly rampages," vulnerable people have been encouraged into suicide, 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." It blames all of it on "the company's insatiable quest to win the AI arms race and amass large fortunes, despite knowing the dangers of ChatGPT." None of these claims has been tested in court.

The suit also leans on OpenAI's origin story. The company was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit promising to benefit humanity "unconstrained by a need to generate financial return," and Texas argues it has misrepresented its products since, including by not telling users that language models can produce inaccurate or harmful output.

"I will fight to protect Texans from the harms of AI and ensure that powerful technology companies are not above the law," Paxton said.

The politics around it

Paxton is the Republican nominee for US Senate, and the largest single donor behind that campaign is Elon Musk, at nearly $200 million. Musk helped found OpenAI, left in 2018 after a bitter falling out with Altman, and later started rival xAI. A federal judge threw out his 2024 suit against OpenAI and Altman. Musk's own chatbot, Grok, has drawn criticism over deepfake pornography and an investigation by California's attorney general; Texas has taken no action against him.

Texas is using outside counsel for the case, including Ashley Keller and Tony Buzbee, who represented Paxton during his 2023 impeachment proceedings.

OpenAI says it has worked with experts to reduce risks and build more 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," a spokesperson said, adding that those rules should cover everyone and not just one company.

Texas is not the only government pressing on this. Last week the FTC sent OpenAI and Anthropic civil investigative demands over safety incidents. The Texas case goes further, asking a court to hold the keys to what OpenAI can release next.

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