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OpenAI is likely to face headwinds for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), which is expected in the last quarter of year 2026 especially after facing a lawsuit in the British Columbia Supreme Court by the mother of Maya Gebala, a 12-year-old left with catastrophic, traumatic brain damage after being shot three times during a February 10 mass shooting at her school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.
📌 Executive Brief
- The lawsuit: Maya Gebala, 12, was shot three times in a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, BC. Her mother is suing OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT had specific knowledge of the shooter’s plans but took no action — a claim ChatGPT contests, saying the threat didn’t meet the threshold for a “credible or imminent” risk.
- The regulatory vacuum: No law in the US, Canada, or elsewhere requires AI companies to flag potential threats to law enforcement. Canada’s AI minister has summoned ChatGPT to Ottawa, but stopped short of signaling regulation, leaving a dangerous grey zone that this case has now thrust into global focus.
- The litigation pile-on: The Tumbler Ridge case is just the latest in a growing stack of lawsuits against ChatGPT — including suits from Elon Musk, The New York Times, Canadian news outlets, and ANI — collectively representing a broad spectrum of legal risk across safety, copyright, and fraud that investors cannot ignore.
- The IPO stakes: OpenAI just closed a historic $110B funding round, reported $25B in revenue with 17% growth, and is targeting $125B by 2029 — but institutional investors assessing a late-2026 public listing will now have to weigh these compounding legal liabilities against what was supposed to be a straightforward growth story.
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OpenAI, which closed a historic funding round of $110 billion in late February 2026 and is planning to go for IPO in the last quarter of 2026, has defended its position, saying that the shooter’s account did not qualify as a credible or imminent plan for serious physical harm to others, hence, it didn’t alert police.
However, the lawsuit, filed by Gebala’s mother, Cia Edmonds, accused ChatGPT of having specific information about the shooter’s plan of a mass shooting, but didn’t take any steps to act upon the information to avert this unfortunate event that left her daughter with a catastrophic brain injury after sustaining three bullet wounds.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT reaffirms its commitment to working with government and law enforcement agencies for meaningful changes that help avert such tragic incidents in the future, and the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, also virtually met Canada’s artificial intelligence minister, Evan Solomon, and discussed the said incident.
Canada’s artificial intelligence minister, Evan Solomon, has also summoned the representatives of ChatGPT to Ottawa to discuss safety concerns. There are reports that Solomon didn’t give any hint to regulate AI chatbots like ChatGPT, but maintained that all options would be reviewed.
During the course of the investigation, it is learnt that there is no specific ruling in the United States and other countries that requires AI companies to report to police in case of any potential threat being observed, highlighting the urgency of a global body for ‘Algorithmic Liability Jurisprudence’.
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On the other hand, ChatGPT is facing a massive wave of litigation.
Other than the case filed by the parents of Maya, a victim of a school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, the most prominent lawsuits against the company are Elon Musk vs. ChatGPT & Microsoft (Contract/Fraud Lawsuit), The New York Times vs. OpenAI (Copyright Lawsuit), Ziff Davis v. ChatGPT, Canadian News Outlets v. ChatGPT, ANI v. ChatGPT, and others.
ChatGPT, which has shown a 17 per cent increase in revenue to US$25 billion in March, is eyeing to become cash-flow positive with a massive revenue growth to US$125 billion by 2029, may face significant roadblocks to a public listing, due to these lawsuits, a major factor in how investors assess risk for its potential IPO.
