Texas Sues OpenAI Over ChatGPT Safety; Apple CEO Opens iPhone Duo Sales in Austin as Tech Week Kicks Off

The state’s attorney general takes aim at ChatGPT, Apple’s new CEO picks Austin for a launch-day ritual, and the city’s weeklong startup festival opens Monday.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on Friday, alleging ChatGPT is unsafe for Texans and seeking to bar minors from using it. The same day, Apple CEO John Ternus opened the doors at the company’s Domain Northside store in Austin as the iPhone Duo went on sale, a rare launch-day appearance in Texas by the company’s top executive. Austin-based Ouma Health on Monday introduced Ouma Connect, a portal that lets surrogacy agencies track medical screening of gestational carriers. And Austin Tech Week begins Monday with five days of events for founders, investors and tech workers. Otherwise, it was a quiet weekend for funding and deal news in Silicon Hills.

Texas sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over ChatGPT safety

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on Friday, alleging the company misled Texans about how safe ChatGPT is and released it without adequate safeguards, according to a news release from his office. The suit, filed in Collin County district court, claims violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. It also cites the SCOPE Act, the state law that requires digital services to give verified parents control over a known minor’s account, The Next Web reported.

The state is asking the court to bar OpenAI from offering ChatGPT to minors in Texas, to require age verification and parental consent, and to block any new OpenAI model in Texas until a court-appointed independent evaluator approves it. It also seeks civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation. The petition points to reported harms including suicides and minors growing dependent on the chatbot without parental oversight. Paxton said he “will fight to protect Texans from the harms of AI.”

An OpenAI spokesperson told The Texas Tribune that the company has worked with experts to build safeguards and is committed to working with states on industrywide AI rules. The Tribune noted that Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, has sued or settled with Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and Roblox in the past year. It also reported that Elon Musk, whose xAI competes with OpenAI, is the largest single donor to Paxton’s campaign.

The case is the most aggressive move yet from Austin-based state officials to regulate consumer AI products. If the court grants the injunction, it would shape how AI companies, including the many building in Austin, handle age checks and model releases in Texas.

Apple CEO John Ternus kicks off iPhone Duo sales in Austin

Ternus greeted customers at Apple Domain Northside when the store opened at 9 a.m. Friday, the first day the iPhone Duo was available in stores, AppleInsider reported. Senior Vice President of Retail Deirdre O’Brien joined him. Apple’s chief executive traditionally opens launch day at the company’s Fifth Avenue store in New York; this time, other Apple executives handled that duty.

Ternus took over as CEO in September, succeeding Tim Cook, according to AppleInsider. Preorders for the iPhone Duo opened Oct. 16. The Domain Northside store, in North Austin’s Domain shopping district, opened in November 2017.

The venue choice put a spotlight on Austin, where Apple runs one of its largest U.S. operations outside California, with a large campus in North Austin.

Ouma Health launches Ouma Connect for surrogacy agencies

Ouma Health, an Austin-based maternal-fetal medicine company, launched Ouma Connect, an invitation-only portal that shows surrogacy and reproductive services agencies where each candidate stands in the medical clearance process, according to a company press release. Circle Surrogacy is the first agency on the platform.

The portal gives agencies a single status board for every candidate they refer, showing the current stage, how many days a candidate has spent there, and the next appointment. It flags tasks agencies can complete to speed up clearance, posts clearance letters from maternal-fetal medicine specialists once Ouma releases them, and lets agencies share private status links with intended parents. Each agency sees only its own referrals, and candidates are identified by first name and last initial.

Co-founder and CEO Dr. Sina Haeri said medical clearance has been the screening step that happens “somewhere the agency can’t see.” Ouma, founded in 2019, is showing the product at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s 2026 meeting in Baltimore, which runs through Wednesday.

Austin Tech Week opens Monday

Austin Tech Week runs Monday through Friday, Oct. 26-30, with programming centered at STATION Austin, 701 Brazos St., and events across the city, according to the event’s website. The gathering began in 2011 as Austin Startup Week before taking its current name.

The week mixes panels, workshops, founder and investor meetups, and evening networking. Silicon Hills News previewed the schedule, including Monday’s Women in Tech Day and Friday’s AI Startup Rodeo, in Sunday’s roundup. Event details and the mobile app are available through the Austin Tech Week site.

Also in Silicon Hills

  • Tesla Cybercab deadline: Tesla’s response to a federal Special Order on how it certified the Cybercab, which is carrying riders in Austin, is due to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Oct. 30, according to The Charge Port’s robotaxi tracker.
  • Austin Marketers Connect: B2B demand generation firm Vereigen Media will host a free networking evening for Austin-area marketing and growth professionals Thursday, Oct. 29, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Dirdie Birdie at The Domain. Registration is required, and the organizer says the event is nearly full (GlobeNewswire).

Only in Austin

For Halloween-season sightseeing, one of Austin’s strangest landmarks sits in a South Austin backyard. Vince Hannemann began stacking cast-off objects behind his house on Lareina Drive in the late 1980s, after moving from Santa Fe, and the result became the Cathedral of Junk: a roughly 30-foot, three-story folk-art structure of bicycles, tires, troll dolls and other donated stuff, once estimated at about 50 tons. A 2010 code dispute nearly led to its demolition, but Hannemann reached a deal with the city that capped the structure’s height and removed about 30 tons. It appears in the opening scene of “Spy Kids 3-D,” according to its Wikipedia entry. Visits are by appointment.

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