Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on Oct. 23, 2026 over claims that ChatGPT harms children and other users. The lawsuit alleges ChatGPT was marketed as safe and reliable while exposing Texans to harmful and inaccurate answers.
The case is a state enforcement action, not a class action settlement. No payout or claim form exists at this stage. ChatGPT remains available in Texas while the court case moves forward.
Table of Contents
- What Texas alleges went wrong
- What Texas wants the court to do
- Is this a settlement you can claim money from?
- What parents and Texas users can do now
What Texas alleges went wrong
The state filed its 67-page petition in Collin County district court against OpenAI Global LLC, five affiliated OpenAI entities and Altman personally, according to the announcement from the Attorney General's office. Texas brings a claim under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act. That law bars false or deceptive business practices, including failure to warn that ChatGPT can give inaccurate and harmful answers.
The petition also brings a second count under the SCOPE Act. SCOPE is Texas's children's online-safety law. Texas alleges ChatGPT had no age registration, no verified parental consent, no parental tools, and unlawfully used known minors' data, according to reporting from AI Policy Desk. The alleged harms include aid to mass shooters, encouragement of suicide in vulnerable users, humiliation of professionals, erosion of critical thinking, and addiction of minors through feigned human compassion without parental oversight.
What Texas wants the court to do
Texas asks the court to prohibit offering ChatGPT to minors in Texas. It also seeks age verification, parental consent, and warnings against tips on eating disorders, self-harm and mass violence, according to coverage from Biometric Update. Texas also asks to bar any new OpenAI model for Texas users until a court-approved independent evaluator reviews its safety guardrails and approves release.
That request would affect future model launches, not only the current version. On money, Texas seeks more than $1 million in relief plus civil penalties, disgorgement, interest, costs and fees, and it requests a jury trial. Civil penalties in the case can reach $10,000 per violation.
Is this a settlement you can claim money from?
No. This is an attorney general lawsuit seeking penalties paid to the state and court orders limiting access. It does not offer payments to individual ChatGPT users or parents. No class was certified. No settlement fund was created.
No filing deadline was announced. Readers should not submit personal information to any site claiming to process Texas ChatGPT payouts. State cases sometimes end in restitution or later private lawsuits. None exists here yet. Treat any such offer as a scam unless a court or the Attorney General announces it.
What parents and Texas users can do now
These are unproven allegations with no court ruling, so ChatGPT access in Texas is unchanged. If granted, the injunction would directly affect Texas minors, parents, schools and future model releases.
Parents who let children use ChatGPT can take practical steps now: OpenAI responded that it has worked with experts to mitigate risks and build safeguards. It said it wants to work with Texas on industry-wide AI policies rather than rules aimed at one company, according to reporting from the Texas Tribune via Insurance Journal.
- Check chat history and device controls for unsupervised use
- Turn off memory and personalization where available
- Save dates, messages and harms if a child received self-harm, eating-disorder or violence-related answers
- Report school-related incidents to the school counselor and keep a written record