The Desantis Loyalist Taking On Big Tech

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier telegraphed what was coming before even saying a word. At his podium, just like his former boss, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, had done so many times, he taped a red, white and blue sign that read: "Stop big tech surveillance.”

Taking swipes at tech titans is a common theme for the Sunshine State’s top legal official. Just the day before, at a press conference in Tampa, Uthmeier had attached a poster to a podium blasting OpenAI for its use of chatbots.

But on this September morning Uthmeier, 38, aimed his ire at a new target — Netflix — announcing that he was suing the streaming behemoth for billions for allegedly using addictive features to grab kids’ attention while profiting from their data, a charge which Netflix denies.

Every click, scroll, and episode, Uthmeier claimed, contributes toward a seemingly infinite number of data points Netflix is using to keep children glued to their screens for hours.

If no one stands up to these companies, Uthmeier said, “we’re going to be behind the eight ball just as we’ve seen with Meta and other social media platforms that have taken much of the youth away from our kids. We will fail.”

As Congress punts on regulating AI and tech titans openly fret about its existential threat, Florida stands out as an example for those who hope to decelerate the frantic growth of AI. There’s a reason for that. Last year, after Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody departed for the Senate, DeSantis installed a key player to score points for the governor’s tech agenda: Uthmeier, his former chief of staff. Through a combination of subpoenas, lawsuits and constant public pressure, Uthmeier has aggressively positioned Florida’s most powerful legal office into a new front in the battle over artificial intelligence and the tech companies behind it.

Thanks to Uthmeier’s efforts, Florida poses the biggest threat to artificial intelligence in red state America. Policymakers and attorneys general across the country in states like California, New York and Pennsylvania are stepping up their efforts to regulate AI and big tech, but Uthmeier’s all-out-offensive is striking due to the constant heat he is putting on the companies and their leaders alike.

If there’s a Big Tech firm out there, Uthmeier has probably sued them — or at least sent them a nasty letter. Yet if Florida’s chief lawyer wants to stay on the forefront of legal fights emerging across the country, he first must overcome a major challenge in the election on Tuesday, where his agenda and resume are being put to the test.

“[Uthmeier is] trying to regulate the AI industry when even Congress is not ready,” said Jane Bambauer, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, whose research delves into how regulating AI and predictive algorithms intersects with law enforcement, free speech, government accountability and health. “And even the industry itself is not even sure what’s possible to do in terms of guardrails.”

Uthmeier first turned heads when he fired off a sweeping legal challenge against OpenAI in June, accusing the company, its founder Sam Altman and ChatGPT of failing to protect users from potential harms. And in alleging the technology is aiding in mass shootings and even encouraging suicides, Uthmeier is attempting to strongarm the company into stricter regulations, arguing Florida needs better safeguards than the market alone is providing. Last month, he escalated his fight against OpenAI, asking a Florida judge to order the tech giant to halt any further development of its AI technology until the court case is settled.

The Republican’s probes into OpenAI are only one aspect of his impact in Florida, where he is engaged in a dizzying number of legal challenges. Since his appointment last year, Uthmeier has become one of the most relentless enforcers of DeSantis’ conservative agenda.

He’s taken on the NFL over diversity hiring policies, sued TikTok over Florida’s restrictions on social media use by minors and helped spearhead “Alligator Alcatraz”, the state’s controversial immigration detention facility in the Everglades — which helped score him a Trump endorsement. This resume also has made Uthmeier a significant adversary for Democrats and detractors of the DeSantis administration, who argue his willingness to muscle through the governor’s and president’s priorities are putting partisan lines above the office.

Yet, with the backing of DeSantis and Trump, he has quickly emerged as one of the most influential figures in Florida politics — a lawyer appointed to power who now finds himself carrying forward the legacy of the governor who elevated him. And in putting Florida at the center of the national debate over AI’s role in American communities and lives, he has deployed his bold strategy to take on a popular foe in the Big Tech companies jockeying to expand.

“I recognize where companies would prefer to have nationwide regulations so that they're not having to adapt and adjust to every single different state that might treat them differently. I understand that, that makes sense,” Uthmeier said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. ”But in the absence of federal legislation, federal regulation, I think we, as states, especially as state attorneys general, have a duty to protect our citizens, especially our most vulnerable.”

Already, he has expanded the scope of his attack on AI by seeking new legislation that would allow his office to pursue criminal charges for acts carried out with the help of chatbots. But passing state-level AI protections in Florida is far from a sure bet.

That’s because next week, in his first-ever election, he’s facing off against a formidable opponent: Democrat Jose Javier “J.J.” Rodriguez, a labor lawyer and former state legislator. Polls show the two in a dead heat.

And then, even if he does win, in January he’ll face a new set of challenges once his lame-duck boss/benefactor leaves office: working with new legislative leaders — and a new governor — in an environment where AI legislation has failed spectacularly thus far.

“He's been very aggressive and has really led the way for other attorney generals around the country,” DeSantis said Oct. 19 during a town hall event with Uthmeier. “Sometimes these Big Tech companies think they can get away with anything, but the reality is, James has stood up to them on behalf of you.”

A chance encounter launched Uthmeier’s career in politics. A native of Florida’s panhandle, Uthmeier ran track at the University of Florida, where he studied business. In 2010, while enrolled at UF, he stumbled on a campaign tailgating event where he met a young politician from Miami running a long-shot campaign for the U.S. Senate: Marco Rubio, who was then speaker of the Florida House. Impressed, Uthmeier signed up to campaign for Rubio — and after Rubio’s victory, Uthmeier followed him to D.C., where he worked as a staffer for the freshman senator.

After working for Rubio for about two years, Uthmeier dropped out of politics, enrolling at Georgetown Law, before landing a post-graduation job as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Jones Day, a law firm with close ties to the Republican Party. But politics beckoned once again, and Uthmeier joined the first Trump administration in 2017 as a senior adviser and counsel to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

By 2019, Uthmeier was looking to return home to Florida. But his path to the DeSantis administration wasn’t as serendipitous as his fateful run-in with Rubio. Through word of mouth he eventually found a role with the incoming governor, scoring a job as a legal staffer.

Working for the DeSantis administration, Uthmeier built a reputation as an aggressive Republican strategist and fundraiser, helping advance the governor’s agenda while navigating — and often embracing — the controversy accompanying it. He established himself as one of the governor’s most trusted advisers, raising money, shaping policy and defending the administration through contentious fights like reopening the state during the Covid pandemic. In 2023, when DeSantis was vying for the GOP nod against Trump, Uthmeier even took over as the governor’s campaign manager.

Today, the two work closely together, whether that’s taking on Big Tech — or scrapping with Democrats. Uthmeier is seen as a hardline conservative aligning neatly with DeSantis’ agenda going after liberal-leaning ideologies or any perceived traces of “wokeness” amid Florida’s GOP-dominance.

Sometimes those legal battles mean taking on political enemies.

In 2023, when Uthmeier was the governor’s chief of staff, DeSantis removed Monique Worrell, a Democratic state attorney elected by voters in Orange and Osceola counties, arguing she was soft on crime and thus endangering the public. At the time, Worrell contended it was a politically driven attack, and one that came only a day after DeSantis reshuffled his ill-fated presidential campaign, putting Uthmeier in charge of the operation.

Even though central Florida voters undid Worrell’s removal by reelecting her in 2024, Uthmeier never let off the gas. In a video posted to social media last year, Uthmeier blasted Worrell, claiming she wrongly prosecuted a woman who “justifiably” stood her ground and shot and killed a man who pulled her out of her car during a road rage incident.

“You got it wrong,” Uthmeier said, staring straight into the camera. “You acted in error.”

The criticism is still heavy as rumors swirl that Uthmeier and DeSantis will suspend Worrell again.

“I just want people to do their job,” Uthmeier told reporters in September when asked about his tensions with Worrell. “I want people to put bad guys away. … Any state attorney who disagrees with me on that, in my opinion, is not doing his or her job effectively.”

When contacted by POLITICO Magazine, Worrell declined comment. But last month, at a press conference, she told reporters, “Every single time the attorney general or the governor invokes this office, they create chaos.”

“They create confusion and they distract from public safety.”

Uthmeier’s opening to attack AI comes from a void created by the Legislature’s inaction on regulating the technology.

Early in 2026, the Republican-dominated Florida House spurned DeSantis’ AI “bill of rights” that emerged as one of the governor’s top priorities heading into his final year leading the state. Among other things, the legislation would have required chatbot platforms to share information with parents, including all interactions their children have with AI.

The problem: Lawmakers found themselves squished between two Floridians — a GOP governor who hoped to be the nation’s standard-bearer in opposing AI at the state level and a Republican president who insists on one set of federal rules.

But DeSantis, one of the nation’s loudest AI skeptics — he even grouses how AI gave him bad info on how to watch the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — is not a man easily deterred. So in April, the governor tried again.

It only took a few moments for the Republican-led state House to tank the governor’s plans. “We have seen very clearly, the president of the United States issued an executive order stating that the federal government should take control of the AI policies of this country,” Daniel Perez, then Florida’s House speaker, said at the time. “This is bigger than just one state or one part of the country.”

Months later, DeSantis still hasn’t forgotten: “They didn't want to do anything,” DeSantis complained at an event last month promoting the state’s sales tax holiday for firearms and hunting gear. Meanwhile, as he approaches the end of his term in office, the governor’s chances to regulate AI are growing dimmer. Which means that if Uthmeier wins in November, he will be positioned to take over as Florida’s anti-AI flagbearer. And he says that he’s driven by the urge to protect children — he’s a father of four — as much as taking on the companies themselves.

So it’s perhaps not surprising that in June, Uthmeier filed the first-of-its-kind civil lawsuit against OpenAI targeting the technology’s effects on kids. In particular, Uthmeier argues the company’s ChatGPT bot fails to provide effective parental controls like proper age verification mechanisms or linking accounts between children and their parents. As part of the legal challenge, which seeks damages and fines from OpenAI, Uthmeier is asking a judge to stop the company from collecting data from minors under the age of 13 without written notice and parental consent. He also launched a criminal probe against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman.

The case centers around the 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University, where a student opened fire on campus, killing two people. As Uthmeier sees it, “if ChatGPT were a person, it would be facing charges for murder” over its role in some of these crimes, like walking the FSU shooter through how to operate the Glock handgun he allegedly used. (A widow of one of the victims is also suing OpenAI.) OpenAI, for its part, is fighting the lawsuit and defends its user protection policies.

OpenAI officials declined to comment for this story, but in a Sept. 30 motion to dismiss the case, wrote that Uthmeier’s lawsuit would trigger “severe restraints on Floridians' access to ChatGPT” and raises “significant First Amendment concerns” as a “broad-based attack” against the popular chatbot.

Tech and legal experts note it would be unusual to hold someone responsible for a criminal act committed by someone else, and there’s uncertainty around how the state could prove a company’s intent to aid in potential crimes. But when it comes to AI, we’re largely in uncharted legal territory anyway. “There are some people who are cheering this because there are concerns about these harms and how they’re going to be reined in,” said Daniel W. Linna Jr., director of law and technology initiatives at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law.

In Uthmeier’s latest volley in his lawsuit against OpenAI, he’s attempting to leverage the panic about the technology’s unchecked growth in Washington to get a judge to block the company from developing new AI models without oversight from an independent third-party.

In his request for the injunction against the company, Uthmeier drew on public statements from current and former AI officials, Altman included, who were raising alarm bells about the technology. And Altman got the same treatment as Florida targets like Worrell, as Uthmeier called him out in a social media video announcing the legal move:

“If Sam Altman meant what he said about slowing down, he can join our ask to the court,” Uthmeier said. “If he will not, we ask the court to do what open AI will not do for itself: protect Florida families.”

While he fights AI in the courts, Uthmeier is pressuring the Florida Legislature to consider new laws that would allow his office to pursue criminal charges against companies for illegal acts carried out with the use of their chatbots, such as creating child sexual abuse materials. The idea, Uthmeier said, is to treat a company “like a co-defendant in a homicide.” And he’s hoping other states and maybe even Congress and tech companies will follow suit.

Lately, there’s been some action on the Hill: Earlier this month, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) announced bipartisan legislation which would hold operators and developers of AI agents criminally and civilly liable for hacking incidents. As such, the measure would empower state attorneys generals to go after the sources behind possible rogue AI agents, which are emerging as the latest tech boogeyman capable of infiltrating government websites and accessing nonpublic files.

Florida also is the only state still pursuing legal action against Meta after rejecting a landmark $17 billion settlement expected to quash lawsuits challenging the social media giant’s child safety features across the country. The settlement was triggered by a coalition of state attorneys bringing lawsuits against the company — including the Sunshine State. New Mexico was also not part of Meta’s multi-state settlement, but that’s because the state took the company to trial independently, as did Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the GOP’s Senate candidate, celebrated the settlement as “a major win” that is expected to pay out $1 billion over the next few years. But Uthmeier blasted the multi-state deal as “peanuts” coming from a company worth nearly $1.7 trillion, contending it sends a “terrible message” to Big Tech.

“My duty to protect our kids is not temporary, I’ll do it forever,” Uthmeier said during an event in September. “And that company's going to learn how to do it as well, and they're going to pay us a really damn big check, you better believe.”

According to Jeff Aaron, a Florida attorney and friend to the attorney general, Uthmeier’s reluctance to settle could be drawn from his big law experience as a litigation associate. In that world, Aaron said, the mindset is, “Never surrender, never settle.”

“If he thinks the plaintiff or defendant is on the wrong side, or breaking the law,” Aaron added, “he will fight it forever.”

But Rodriguez, Uthmeier’s opponent, contends that in rejecting the Meta settlement, the attorney general “walked away from those protections for a cheap press conference promising a bigger payday without any plan to achieve it.”

“Uthmeier has turned Florida into a social experiment,” Rodriguez said.

Still, while Uthmeier is alone in some of his moves — like opposing the Meta settlement and being the first to sue OpenAI — some of his ideas are catching on. Notably, a bipartisan group of eight attorneys general filed their own lawsuits against OpenAI in October, leveling claims similar to Uthmeier in state courts across the country.

For Uthmeier, lawsuits — and the threat of them — are policy tools. He has shown a willingness to use the attorney general's office to pressure corporations, shape public debate and, in some cases, achieve through the courts what lawmakers haven’t through legislation.

Uthmeier developed a tried and trusted playbook: identify a high-profile target, put them on the defensive with public accusations and then reinforce the message with subpoenas or litigation, sometimes both. This strategy has repeatedly forced some of the country's biggest companies to answer to Florida's attorney general.

But amid these high-profile fights, questions linger about where Uthmeier’s aggressive legal approach ends — and political posturing begins.

Skeptics and critics view some of his actions as opportunities to generate campaign buzz while serving a state Cabinet role. Taking on big tech and AI companies in particular are a “good target” for Uthmeier, allowing him to be seen as the “champion of victims against a — at least right now — broadly loathed industry,” Bambauer said.

Of course, to keep up these legal battles, Uthmeier must win next week. And with mere days until polls close, there are signs pointing in Uthmeier’s favor. He currently holds a massive fundraising advantage over his opponent, and Republicans outnumber Democrats in deep red Florida by nearly 1.6 million registered voters. History is also on his side, as Florida hasn’t elected a Democratic attorney general since the last one left office in 2002.

And yet Uthmeier finds himself in a highly competitive race. With the tight margins surrounding Uthmeier’s clash with Rodriguez, Democrats are attempting to capitalize on a scandal tied to his past work with DeSantis. Feeling that Florida’s race is in play, the Democratic Attorneys General Association invested $5 million into Rodriguez’s campaign on Oct. 8. In a statement, the organization said that Uthmeier “cannot be trusted.”

As an example, the DAGA points to allegations that Uthmeier had a hand in steering $10 million from a Medicaid settlement through first lady Casey DeSantis’ nonprofit Hope Florida Foundation and into a political committee to fight Florida's 2024 recreational marijuana ballot measure. This saga has been a focal point in the race, as groups supporting Democrats blast Uthmeier and Moody, who was attorney general at the time, in ads claiming they diverted moneymeant to help “sick children.” 

Opponents also pan Uthmeier for moves like spearheading the expensive and temporary “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility, where costs soared to an estimated $1.2 billion, and helping the Trump family score a piece of prime real estate in Miami to build a presidential library, another effort that contributed to Uthmeier becoming one of only three state attorneys general endorsed by by the president.

Rodriguez, who represented the Miami area in the state Senate for four years before narrowly losing reelection in 2020, argues that Uthmeier is “the most corrupt Attorney General Florida has ever had” “He’s like an arsonist who shows up when you call 911,” Rodriguez told POLITICO Magazine. He’s only proven he’s either a complete servant of DeSantis, or of the president.”

Uthmeier maintains the Hope Florida fallout is a “witch hunt,” pointing to his record on public safety and success recouping money from scams, targeting fraudsters and taking on major companies.

“These are cheap political attacks,” Uthmeier said, “but I think voters should look at results.”

Scores of lawsuits and legal pursuits hang in the balance depending on whether Uthmeier prevails.

If he loses, there’s sure to be a shift in the brash nature of Florida’s attorney general’s office, exemplified by his decision to stand alone and reject the Meta settlement. At the same time, the loss would deal a significant blow to DeSantis’ legacy: One of his handpicked appointees would leave office when he does, losing the chance to carry on DeSantis’ agenda for four more years.

And if Uthmeier wins, regulating AI could continue to be a tough slog. Florida’s Legislature already rejected AI restrictions twice, and next year there will be a new governor, either Donalds, who is nowhere near as wary of the technology as DeSantis, or Democrat David Jolly, who is part of the chorus of critics that have ripped into Uthmier over Hope Florida. Plus, Congress or the Trump administration could ultimately complicate how states are allowed to intervene on AI.

But Uthmeier sees a path forward and is optimistic he can help get AI regulations through the statehouse where similar efforts have failed in the past.

“We're gonna keep pushing,” Uthmeier said. “We believe in protecting our kids. It's not something we can get a B-minus on.”