Lawsuit Accuses OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and SpaceXAI of Illegal AI Slowdown Pact
A new lawsuit filed Friday in California federal court alleges Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google illegally agreed to slow AI development, violating antitrust laws and reducing value for paid subscribers. The suit claims coordination began Sept. 12 when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged industrywide slowdowns for safety, with OpenAI's Sam Altman, SpaceXAI's Elon Musk and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis publicly agreeing. Four plaintiffs, representing a nationwide class of paid subscribers to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini, filed the action. Amodei's essay acknowledged antitrust concerns, suggesting government mediation or a waiver for safety discussions. Altman responded that a federal framework is welcome but not required to begin safety work, while industry leaders have long discussed shared standards.