Florida’s Attorney General sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on June 2, 2026, in what officials are calling the first state-led lawsuit of its kind, alleging the company ignored safety warnings and allowed ChatGPT to contribute to violent incidents across the state and beyond.
Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the filing, accusing OpenAI of prioritizing winning “the AI arms race and amass large fortunes” over user safety. “OpenAI and Altman ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians,” Uthmeier said.
The 83-page complaint alleges that ChatGPT aided mass shooters, encouraged vulnerable users toward suicide, humiliated professionals through false information, eroded users’ critical thinking skills, and allowed minors to become addicted to the tool while their data was collected without parental oversight.
A central focus of the lawsuit is a mass shooting at Florida State University last year, in which the shooter allegedly consulted ChatGPT before the attack. Florida’s Attorney General had already launched a criminal investigation into OpenAI’s potential role in that incident in April. The family of one victim has also filed a separate civil suit against the company. OpenAI has denied responsibility, stating previously that “ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime.”
The Florida case is part of a broader pattern of litigation targeting OpenAI over alleged harms linked to its chatbot. The parents of a California teenager, Adam Raine, sued the company after he died by suicide following conversations with ChatGPT, in which the bot allegedly provided details on suicide methods. Additional lawsuits involving allegations of stalking and murder remain ongoing.
OpenAI recently concluded a separate legal battle with former co-founder Elon Musk, whose 2024 lawsuit accusing the company of abandoning its nonprofit mission was dismissed after a jury found he had filed beyond the statute of limitations. TechCrunch reported that OpenAI had not yet responded to a request for comment on the Florida lawsuit at the time of publication.
Source: TechCrunch