OpenAI faces state probe and legal heat
Florida’s attorney-general has opened a formal investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT after reports that the chatbot was allegedly used to plan a campus attack, with subpoenas said to be forthcoming and a victim’s family planning a suit. A Manhattan judge separately ordered a second deposition in a copyright case after finding a corporate witness unhelpful, and OpenAI has paused its Stargate UK data‑centre project citing energy and regulatory uncertainty. These moves show regulators and courts are pressing on product‑safety, discovery and infrastructure economics all at once. (politico.com) (techcrunch.com) (chicagotribune.com) (ft.com)
Florida opened a formal state investigation into OpenAI on April 9 after Attorney General James Uthmeier said ChatGPT was allegedly used in planning the April 17, 2025 shooting at Florida State University. Uthmeier said subpoenas are coming and framed the probe around public safety and national security. (politico.com) The attack left two people dead and five injured, and lawyers for one victim’s family said they plan to sue OpenAI. That turns a criminal case into a product-liability fight over what a chatbot did, what safeguards existed, and what the company knew. (techcrunch.com) OpenAI said it is committed to user safety and pointed to policies that prohibit harmful instructions. The Florida investigation will test not just what the written rules said, but how the system behaved in a real case. (nbcnews.com) A second front opened in Manhattan, where United States Magistrate Judge Ona Wang ordered another deposition of OpenAI’s corporate witness in the copyright litigation. She said the witness gave “hazy recollections” and could not answer basic questions about how OpenAI tries to stop chatbots from reproducing protected text. (chicagotribune.com) That case is part of the larger federal copyright fight in the Southern District of New York, where authors, news organizations, and other plaintiffs are trying to learn what data OpenAI used and what internal controls it built. Depositions are the part where a company has to put up a human being who can answer under oath, not just file legal briefs. (courtlistener.com) Judge Wang’s order matters because discovery fights are usually about access to facts before trial. If a judge thinks a company witness is not prepared, the court can make the company do it again and sometimes make it pay for the extra time. (chatgptiseatingtheworld.com) A third pressure point is not a courtroom at all but a power bill. OpenAI has paused its Stargate United Kingdom data-centre project, saying the economics do not work yet because British industrial electricity prices are high and the regulatory picture is still unsettled. (ft.com) Stargate was announced in September 2025 with Nvidia and Nscale as a plan to build large artificial-intelligence computing capacity in Britain. Data centres are warehouses full of chips, and those chips turn electricity into the computing power that trains and runs systems like ChatGPT. (cnbc.com) Put together, the three stories land on three different parts of OpenAI’s business at once: what the product does for users, what the company has to hand over in court, and whether it can afford to build the infrastructure its models need. The pressure is coming from a state attorney general, a federal judge, and the basic cost of energy. (politico.com) (chicagotribune.com) (ft.com) For most technology companies, those fights usually arrive one at a time. OpenAI is getting all three in the same week, which means the next argument about artificial intelligence is no longer just about smarter models but about subpoenas, sworn testimony, and megawatts. (techcrunch.com) (chatgptiseatingtheworld.com) (ft.com)
