OpenAI Under Fire From State Attorneys General While Preparing a $1 Trillion IPO

• Advertising strategies and user engagement metrics
• Retention data and handling of consumer and health information
• Activities involving minors and elderly users
• Deep learning algorithms and related safety practices

A spokesperson for OpenAI told CNBC on the same day that the company intends to "collaborate constructively" with the state attorneys general and takes their concerns "seriously" . The statement did not address specific lines of inquiry or whether OpenAI would contest any portion of the subpoena.

Florida's criminal and civil actions

The core of the most aggressive action comes from Florida. Attorney General James Uthmeier first opened a civil probe on April 9, 2026, tied to the November 2025 shooting at Florida State University in which gunman Phoenix Ikner killed two people . Prosecutors then reviewed chat logs between Ikner and ChatGPT prior to the attack, and on April 21, Uthmeier announced a full criminal investigation run by the Office of Statewide Prosecution .

Uthmeier stated publicly that the chat logs showed ChatGPT "provided substantial guidance to the shooter prior to the commission of these atrocious acts" . He also released details of conversations where the AI allegedly responded to questions about self-harm and harming others .

On June 1, Florida escalated further, becoming the first state to sue OpenAI over product design and safety. The lawsuit accuses OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of prioritizing profit over safety, alleging that ChatGPT's design endangered children, facilitated a mass shooting, and encouraged suicidal behavior . The legal theory—that an AI developer can be held liable for "aiding and abetting" a violent crime through its product design—has no clear precedent, and the suit may test the bounds of Section 230 and product liability law as applied to generative AI.

OpenAI responded to the lawsuit by asserting it has "leading protective measures and policies" in the industry . The company separately told Politico in April that it would cooperate with Florida's investigation and noted that "each week, more than 900 million people use ChatGPT to improve their daily lives" .

The IPO and the SEC letter

On May 12, 2026, ten state attorneys general—from Montana, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and West Virginia—sent a formal letter to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins . Their letter raises "serious concerns about the impending initial public offering of OpenAI" and asks the Commission to apply "especially stringent scrutiny" to any registration filings. It specifically cites "a history of self-dealing and serious conflicts of interest" by CEO Sam Altman .

The letter landed while OpenAI was already deep into its IPO preparations. The company confidentially filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC on May 22, targeting a valuation between $852 billion and $1 trillion—the $852 billion figure matches the post-money valuation from OpenAI's March 2026 private funding round, and the $1 trillion ceiling represents what public market investors might pay . Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading the deal .

OpenAI acknowledged the filing in a June 8 blog post that said: "We recently filed a confidential S-1. We anticipate it will be leaked, so we're making this announcement now" . The company also said timing remains undecided, noting that some things are "easier as a private company" . Despite that caution, multiple sources familiar with the plan have indicated a potential public debut as early as September 2026 .

Business snapshot: users, revenue, and the enterprise pivot

The regulatory firestorm is unfolding around a company experiencing staggering commercial growth. As of March 2026, ChatGPT reported over 900 million weekly active users and more than 50 million paying subscribers . Enterprise revenue has risen to 40% of the business and is on track to reach parity with consumer revenue by the end of 2026 .

The March 2026 funding round—$122 billion in committed capital, backed by Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank—was the largest private fundraising round in history . OpenAI's 2025 revenue was approximately $13.1 billion, and monthly revenue is now running at roughly $2 billion . Yet the company remains deeply unprofitable—2026 GAAP losses are forecast at $25–26 billion as OpenAI spends heavily on computing infrastructure .

That scale, and the immense public valuation it supports, are exactly what the state AGs are now probing. The collision between OpenAI's acceleration toward a history-making IPO and the intensifying legal scrutiny from multiple states makes the next few months pivotal for both the company and the broader AI industry.

The broader regulatory backdrop

The OpenAI investigation is not happening in isolation. In February 2026, California Attorney General Rob Bonta established a dedicated AI oversight unit and continued pressing an investigation into Elon Musk's xAI over non-consensual explicit imagery generated by the Grok chatbot . In August 2025, a bipartisan coalition of 44 state attorneys general issued a formal letter to major AI companies—including OpenAI—demanding stronger child safety protections . And New York has enacted legislation that grants its attorney general the power to bring civil actions against AI developers for failure to report critical safety incidents, with penalties of up to $3 million per violation .

For OpenAI, the immediate questions are whether the SEC responds to the AGs' IPO-scrutiny request, how quickly the multi-state investigation subpoena produces public findings, and whether Florida's criminal probe moves beyond subpoenas into charges. The answers will help define how far state-level legal authority can reach into the architecture and business practices of frontier AI companies.