Lawsuit accuses Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google of illegal AI slowdown pact

A new lawsuit filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleges that Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google illegally agreed to slow their AI development, violating antitrust laws and reducing value for paid subscribers. The suit claims coordination occurred on Sept. 12 when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged industrywide slowdowns for safety, and OpenAI's Sam Altman, SpaceXAI's Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis publicly agreed. Four named plaintiffs, representing a nationwide class of paid subscribers to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or Gemini, argue the rivals' pact on slower progress has an anticompetitive effect. Amodei acknowledged potential antitrust issues, suggesting a government waiver for safety talks, while Altman said no exemption was needed. President Donald Trump rejected regulation calls, claiming limits are a conspiracy and announcing an AI task force, while Sen. Josh Hawley opposed granting antitrust exemptions to powerful companies.