Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Monday sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, accusing Altman of leading a company that prioritized profits over protecting its users’ safety.
In the 83-page complaint filed in Florida circuit court, the state claimed OpenAI’s rise was backed by “a web of deceit and the exploitation of users (including Floridians), leveraging their data and safety to boost OpenAI’s market value at unacceptable costs.” The state wants to hold Altman “personally liable for the harm he has caused Floridians through his reckless and willful conduct as founder and CEO of OpenAI, including his utter disregard for the risk to human life caused by his firms’ conduct.”
Florida is the first U.S. state to sue the company over safety concerns. Monday’s lawsuit is separate from a criminal investigation Uthmeier opened into OpenAI in April.
OpenAI did not respond to an immediate request for comment. The company has claimed it designs its products with a goal to make them “safe for everyone.” In November, in response to lawsuits over mental health, OpenAI said it had “safeguards in place to help people, especially teens, when conversations turn sensitive.”
Throughout the complaint, filed in the state’s circuit court of the 10th judicial circuit, the State of Florida claimed OpenAI‘s “careless introduction” of ChatGPT had led to an increase in murders and suicides. The suit alleged Florida’s minors have “become addicted to a tool that feigns human compassion to collect their data with no parental oversight.” It cited instances in the past year of the alleged use of ChatGPT to plan a mass shooting at Florida State University in April 2025 and the murders of two graduate students at the University of South Florida in April.
