OpenAI faces 30 more lawsuits tied to Tumbler Ridge shooting

Lehane is a well-known political operator and PR spin master with particular expertise in damage control, having worked in that capacity on behalf of the Clinton administration, at Airbnb, and now at OpenAI. The plaintiffs allege that his background contributes to a culture at OpenAI that prioritizes public relations and damage control over safety. 

“The Intelligence and Investigations Team—the only team inside OpenAI responsible for identifying ChatGPT users who pose a threat of real-world violence—was placed under control,” reads one of the complaints, shared with TechCrunch. “As a result, the decision whether to alert law enforcement to a user planning a mass attack was not made by the trained threat-assessment professionals who urged OpenAI to contact the . It was made, on information and belief, by Lehane himself, or by someone in his chain of command, and ratified by Sam Altman.”

“On information and belief” is a legal term meaning the plaintiffs believe a claim to be true based on secondhand information, even though they can’t yet prove it directly. TechCrunch was unable to confirm whether Lehane indeed has the authority to override recommendations from the intelligence and investigations team, or whether he was involved in this specific case at all. Notably, Lehane is not listed as a defendant in the complaints, though, as in the previous seven complaints, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is.

“We are not laying out all of our evidence at this point,” Jay Edelson, the lead lawyer on the cases, told TechCrunch, noting that Lehane and Altman will be “critical witnesses” alongside the safety team. “We can tell you that we are basing this in part on the org chart, but also our broader investigation, which includes what we have learned about how Lehane operates within the company.”

“It is absolutely false to say Chris Lehane was involved with our original referral decision, or that our investigators report to him in any way,” Kwon said. “It’s also completely untrue to say that the people at the center of these challenging decisions do not prioritize safety, or that there are ‘political’ or ‘public relations’ factors at play.” 

The fresh complaints also seek to rebut OpenAI’s previous defense that it did not alert Canadian authorities to Van Rootselaar’s conversations with ChatGPT due to “imminence” and “privacy” justifications. The complaints point to an incident in November 2025, during which OpenAI locked down its San Francisco offices following an alleged threat from an activist. 

“Although OpenAI acknowledged there was ‘no indication of active threat activity’—and thus no indication of an ‘imminent’ attack—the company… immediately locked down its offices, warned employees, distributed the suspect’s name and photograph, and notified the San Francisco Police Department,” a complaint reads. 

“When its own people were at risk, no ‘privacy’ interest stopped OpenAI from notifying the police or circulating the man’s name and photograph to thousands of employees. Nor did it wait for the attack to become imminent because it recognized that waiting would jeopardize employee safety.”