AI companies sued over alleged illegal slowdown pact

A class action lawsuit filed Friday in California accuses Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google of illegally agreeing to slow AI development, alleging Sherman Act violations that reduce consumer value. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, centers on Sept. 12 coordination when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged industrywide deceleration for safety, and OpenAI's Sam Altman, SpaceXAI's Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis publicly agreed. Four paid subscribers to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or Gemini seek to represent a nationwide class. Plaintiffs' lead attorney Nick Rowley argues private safety agreements among rivals harm consumers, while the companies haven't commented. Amodei had suggested a government waiver for safety talks, but President Donald Trump rejected regulation calls, claiming a "conspiracy," and announced an AI task force Saturday. Senator Josh Hawley opposes antitrust exemptions, and Republicans largely mirror Trump's stance on outpacing Chinese competition.