Florida's AG brings the first state-led suit against OpenAI and its CEO

Florida's Attorney General filed the first state-led civil suit against OpenAI and personally named its Chief Executive Officer, alleging the company marketed ChatGPT to the public, including children, while concealing known safety risks.

What happened

On June 1, 2026, Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a civil complaint against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, filed in Florida's Tenth Judicial Circuit, alleging the company released and marketed ChatGPT to the public, including to children, while concealing known safety risks, suppressing internal warnings, and misrepresenting the product's dangers to Floridians. Uthmeier said: "OpenAI and Altman ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians."

Allegations and legal basis

The office's release states the complaint alleges OpenAI prioritized speed to market and commercial gain over user safety, disregarded repeated internal and external warnings, and deployed a product that, per the complaint, encourages self-harming and violent behavior despite assurances to users that it was safe. It also alleges ChatGPT collects data from minors without meaningful parental oversight. The office brings the action under Florida's law against unfair and deceptive trade practices, seeking damages and injunctive relief. The release separately notes Florida's Office of Statewide Prosecution opened an unrelated criminal investigation the prior month into whether ChatGPT played a role in a 2025 shooting at Florida State University; that investigation is distinct from the civil complaint and remains ongoing per the release.

Why it matters to security leaders

This is the first state attorney general action to seek personal liability against a major AI vendor's chief executive, a materially different exposure than a company-only consent order — relevant to any security or legal leader assessing vendor risk from a frontier AI model provider, particularly where minors are foreseeable users. The underlying consumer-protection theory (deceptive marketing of safety, not a data breach or security failure) is also distinct from most of the incidents this site's own incident log tracks.

See the regulation tracker for how this compares to other state and federal AI enforcement actions.