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Elon Musk’s comments came while responding to a social media post that raised questions about a tragic school shooting in Canada.
A former student carried out one of Canada’s most shocking school attacks. (Image source: X)
A new dispute has begun between Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, this time over the safety of AI chatbots. Musk recently spoke out against ChatGPT, warning that the tool could be risky, especially for children and people dealing with mental health issues. His comments came while responding to a social media post that raised questions about a tragic school shooting in Canada. The incident occurred in the small town of Tumbler Ridge, where former student Van Rotselaar carried out one of the country’s most shocking school attacks in recent years.
Reports later indicated that the attacker had conversations with ChatGPT before the incident and discussed violent situations. An automated system reportedly picked up the messages. Afterwards, some employees at the company discussed whether the information should be shared with the police.
Elon Musk warns that ChatGPT may be too risky for some users
One X user shared a screenshot from the Court News Service explaining how Van Rotselaar planned the attack on her school. In response to the post, Elon Musk responded by warning people about the chatbot and wrote: “Keep ChatGPT away from children and the mentally ill.”
The shooter held conversations with ChatGPT before the attack
According to the report, Van Rotselaar had several conversations with ChatGPT in 2025 in which she spoke about gun violence over the course of several days. The chatbot’s monitoring system noticed these messages and flagged them for human moderators to review. After reading the chats, about a dozen employees felt the situation looked dangerous and thought there was a high risk of someone getting hurt. Because of this concern, some of them suggested informing the Canadian police. The report claims that this idea was passed along to the company’s senior leaders, but the request to contact law enforcement was not approved.
“Instead, the only step the OpenAl Defendants took in response to ChatGPT’s gun violence posts was to ban Shooter’s first OpenAl account, and Shooter used the second OpenAl account to continue planning scenarios involving gun violence, including a mass casualty event such as the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting, with ChatGPT, and receiving mental health counseling and false treatment from ChatGPT,” the report said.
OpenAI described the Tumbler Ridge School shooting as a tragic and deeply distressing event. The company said it stands with the people who lost their lives, their families, and everyone in the community affected by the accident. The company also said that it plans to continue working with government authorities and law enforcement agencies to find better ways to prevent such incidents in the future.
March 13, 2026, 2:18 PM IST
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