OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tried to speak with California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week in an effort to influence legislation in the state about how chatbots are allowed to interact with kids, according to a new report from Politico. The legislation passed on Monday and still needs to be signed by Newsom to become law.
California Senate Bill 1119, which was written by state senator Steve Padilla and assemblymembers Buffy Wicks and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, requires AI companies to determine a user’s age, give tools to parents to limit their kids’ time with chatbots like ChatGPT, and undergo independent audits, among other restrictions.
The bill would also prohibit AI companies from serving ads to kids that rely on any personal information gleaned from chatbot interactions with a given child. It would also make it illegal to sell data collected on kids from chats. Chatbots would still be able to serve “age-appropriate contextual advertising” to kids, according to the bill’s language, though ads will need to be labeled as ads.
The bill was amended on Friday with a number of changes, including a move to narrow the situations when families could sue AI companies, according to Politico. It’s unclear what role, if any, Altman may have played in getting changes to the legislation and the company told Politico that Newsom spoke with a wide variety of stakeholders.
Reached for comment over email Tuesday, an OpenAI spokesperson directed Gizmodo to a statement supporting the legislation, which was published shortly before the bill passed the legislature on Monday. OpenAI wouldn’t comment on the record about Altman’s outreach to Newsom but a person familiar with the matter denied that the governor and the OpenAI CEO spoke directly last week.
“SB 1119 builds on youth safety measures that OpenAI has supported through our products, global policy principles, advocacy in California, and work on the Parents & Kids Safe AI Act. We encourage Governor Newsom to sign the bill into law,” the statement reads.
OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens on Aug. 18, which introduced safeguards into ChatGPT for kids between the ages of 13-17.
“It is designed to help users under 18 learn, think critically, and build while promoting healthy use, providing built-in safeguards, and giving parents additional controls,” the statement explains. “If our system estimates someone is under 18 or they state their age is between 13 and 17, they are automatically placed into ChatGPT for Teens. Those protections are part of the baseline experience, not optional settings that users can turn off.”
Newsom has long been a friend of Silicon Valley, vetoing bills that he saw as too restrictive of innovation for Big Tech. But the tide has certainly turned as the public sours on recent tech like AI, which has often been seen as a destructive force when left unregulated. The data center backlash has gotten the most headlines in recent months, but 2026 has also seen stories of kids who died by suicide after being egged on by AI chatbots.
Newsom is term limited and will be exiting his role as governor on Jan. 7, 2027. But he’s widely expected to run for president in 2028, presumably as a Democrat. We say presumably because he’s done a lot in recent years to court far-right Republicans, including by hosting a podcast featuring the likes of Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon where he seemed to agree more than disagree with the extremist MAGA base.
Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton are running to be governor of California in November, and while they may disagree on a number of issues the two men seem generally friendly to Big Tech on most issues. Hilton believes in less regulation across the board and is married to Rachel Whetstone, who has worked for companies like Uber, Netflix, Facebook, and Google. Becerra has proposed modest guardrails for AI and has received significant donations from Silicon Valley.
Becerra has a commanding lead in virtually all polling on the California gubernatorial race, with the latest from University of California Berkeley Institute of Government Studies showing most people preferring the Democrat (55%) to Hilton (37%).
