Lawsuit: Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google conspired to slow AI development

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 began 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 on consumers. Amodei acknowledged potential antitrust issues in his essay, suggesting the U.S. government mediate or issue a narrow waiver for safety conversations. Altman responded that a federal framework would be welcome but said they don't need to wait for an exemption to begin safety work. The companies had not commented as of Saturday.