Texas Sues OpenAI and Sam Altman Over ChatGPT Safety
By Sidra Salman · October 25, 2026 Texas just became the tenth US state to sue OpenAI — and this one goes further than the rest. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a 67-page lawsuit on Friday, October 23, 2026, against both the company and its CEO, Sam Altman, personally. If Texas wins, ChatGPT could be barred for minors in the state, and no new OpenAI model could reach Texas users until a court-approved independent evaluator signs off on it. That last demand is the one to watch. No other state has asked a court to put a third-party gatekeeper between OpenAI and its users. Here's what Texas actually filed, how it differs from the lawsuits that came before it, and what it could mean for the millions of people who use ChatGPT every day. What Texas filed Paxton filed the case in Collin County District Court under two Texas laws: the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the state's main consumer-protection statute, and the SCOPE Act, a newer law that requires digital services to ver...