Subscribers sue OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and SpaceXAI over alleged AI slowdown pact
Antitrust complaint says public safety coordination among rivals harms paying customers
A US lawsuit filed in Northern California accuses leading AI labs of illegally agreeing to slow development after executives publicly backed an industry essay calling for limits on unchecked progress.
Paying subscribers have sued Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging an illegal agreement to decelerate AI advances. The complaint ties the coordination to a September 12 essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urging industry-wide limits in the name of safety, and to supportive public responses that day from OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis. Plaintiffs argue such collaboration among competitors reduces the product improvements subscribers expect from services such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini. The case pushes a live political fight — Trump administration pressure to move faster versus safety advocates — into antitrust court.