Sam Altman's chatbot coached a mass shooter on how to eliminate people at Florida State University.
Now Florida is making Altman pay for it personally – and the man running to be the next governor just told Washington to stay out of the way.
Attorney General James Uthmeier filed the first state lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO on Monday, naming Altman himself, and the case against him is worse than anything the tech press is willing to tell you.
What ChatGPT Did Before the FSU Tragedy
The shooter who opened fire at Florida State University last year was not some mystery.
Phoenix Ikner spent weeks in "constant communication" with ChatGPT before the attack.
He asked the chatbot specifically about mass shootings at FSU.
He asked how to use his weapons.
ChatGPT answered him, and two people died.
Prosecutors reviewed those chat logs in April and Uthmeier opened a criminal investigation on the spot.
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Then Monday he filed a civil complaint on top of it – accusing OpenAI of pushing a dangerous product onto children while hiding what the company already knew about the risks.
"Sam Altman and ChatGPT have chosen the AI race over the safety and security of our kids," Uthmeier said.
"They have chosen profit over public safety, and we're not going to stand for it here in Florida."
Florida investigators found that ChatGPT steers children toward self-harm and suicide, assists people actively planning violence, hoovers up data on minors with no real parental controls, and is engineered in ways that create behavioral addiction in young users.
The company knew all of this.
It suppressed the internal warnings, lied to the public about what the product was doing, and kept collecting the money.
Florida law prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices.
Uthmeier says damages could reach into the billions.
OpenAI Picked the Wrong State to Mess With
Silicon Valley spent years betting that no state attorney general would have the stomach to go after a company this large and name its CEO personally.
Florida just proved them wrong.
What makes Monday significant beyond the lawsuit itself is who is standing behind it.
Byron Donalds – Trump's handpicked choice to be Florida's next governor, holding roughly 50 percent in the Republican primary with 63 state House Republicans already behind him – told reporters the same day that Florida and states like it need to set their own AI rules, and Washington needs to step back.
"I think that the states do need to lead when it comes to setting a regulatory framework," Donalds said.
That is not a small statement coming from the man carrying Trump's endorsement.
Trump signed an executive order in December threatening to pull federal funding from any state that passes what the White House labeled "onerous" AI regulations.
Donalds looked at that order and told reporters he disagrees.
Florida decides what happens in Florida.
Sam Altman Built This Problem
DeSantis warned about this more than a year ago.
When the Trump administration pushed to strip states of AI regulatory authority, DeSantis called the move "a subsidy to Big Tech" and argued that handing Silicon Valley immunity from state oversight would leave Americans with no recourse when these products hurt people.
He was right.
ChatGPT walked a Florida student through the planning of a mass shooting.
And while Florida prosecutors were reading those chat logs, Sam Altman's company was still marketing the same product to children with the same safety promises it had already decided were false.
The tech industry has spent millions trying to prevent this moment – lobbying for federal preemption, funding friendly campaigns, and flooding state capitals with arguments about innovation and American competitiveness.
None of that stops a grieving family from burying someone ChatGPT helped kill.
They were not telling the truth about their product.
Uthmeier made that official on Monday.
The reckoning Florida's AG just filed is the one Sam Altman has been running from.
Sources:
- James Uthmeier, "Attorney General James Uthmeier Files First-in-the-Nation State-Led Lawsuit Against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman for Deceptive Practices and Harms to Floridians," MyFloridaLegal.com, June 2, 2026.
- Fox Business, "Florida AG Says OpenAI Exposed to Billions in Potential Damages," Fox Business, June 3, 2026.
- Latin Times, "Trump's Pick for Florida Governor Byron Donalds Breaks With Him on AI as State Sues OpenAI," Latin Times, June 2, 2026.
- The Hill, "Trump AI Order Fuels GOP Divide Over State Laws," The Hill, December 14, 2025.
- Florida Politics, "Poll: Byron Donalds at 50% in GOP Governor's Primary as Most Voters Support Federal AI Framework," Florida Politics, April 12, 2026.
