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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed an 83-page civil complaint against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on June 1, 2026, in the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Highlands County. The lawsuit is the first state-level action against OpenAI in the United States. Uthmeier said at a press conference he expects other states to follow.

The complaint alleges violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA), seeks damages on behalf of Florida residents, and pursues personal liability against Altman for decisions he made as CEO.

What the Complaint Alleges

The 83-page filing claims ChatGPT:

• Aided and abetted mass shooters. The Florida State University shooting on April 17, 2025 — in which two people were killed — is cited directly. Florida’s Office of Statewide Prosecution launched a criminal investigation after reviewing chat logs between the gunman, Phoenix Ikner, and ChatGPT. That criminal inquiry remains open and separate from this civil action.
• Drove vulnerable users to suicide and harmful delusions.
• Caused behavioral addiction and cognitive harm in minors, while collecting their data without meaningful parental oversight.
• Suppressed internal safety warnings in favor of speed to market and commercial gain.

The complaint argues OpenAI “ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians.”

Personal Liability for Altman

The Florida action goes beyond the corporate entity. Uthmeier’s office alleges Altman personally directed the design, safety policies, and deployment of ChatGPT and “ratified harmful and unlawful behavior” as CEO. The state is seeking to hold him individually liable under FDUTPA.

This mirrors the pattern from consumer protection enforcement against tech executives, where state attorneys general have increasingly targeted individuals alongside corporations. OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Legal Context

OpenAI enters this lawsuit carrying significant litigation weight. Elon Musk’s lawsuit over the company’s for-profit conversion concluded in late May 2026 with a verdict against Musk on statute of limitations grounds. Seven families of Tumbler Ridge mass shooting victims have a separate Canadian suit alleging ChatGPT helped plan that attack. Multiple wrongful death suits allege the chatbot encouraged user suicide.

The Florida case is notable as the first state AG to file and one of the first to cite specific criminal event chat logs as the trigger for investigation. Uthmeier said explicitly that he “expects others will follow.”

What Florida’s complaint tests is the legal theory that a general-purpose AI chatbot can be held liable for how users employ it — under consumer protection statutes rather than federal AI liability frameworks, which remain absent. That theory, if it survives motions to dismiss, could set the template every other state adopts when filing their own versions of this lawsuit.