OpenAI faces antitrust lawsuit over AI slowdown agreement

OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceXAI face a proposed class action lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing the companies of an illegal agreement to slow the pace of artificial intelligence development. The plaintiffs allege that this coordination between direct competitors violates US antitrust laws and harms millions of paying subscribers to services such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok by reducing the value of their subscriptions.

The lawsuit points to an essay published on September 12, 2026, by Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, in which he called on the industry to cooperate in decelerating technological advances to prioritize safety measures. On the same day, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, head of SpaceXAI, publicly agreed with the proposal, which the plaintiffs describe as evidence of unlawful coordination.

The complaint also cites a July 2026 statement signed by senior employees from multiple artificial intelligence laboratories. That document acknowledged intense competitive pressure against unilaterally slowing development and asked the government to back global efforts to pause automated AI progress.

Four identified subscribers brought the case on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of affected users. While the lawsuit does not challenge individual decisions by companies to moderate development for safety, it argues that collective restraint among competitors without a formal antitrust exemption or regulatory framework constitutes an anticompetitive pact.

In his essay, Amodei noted that the US government should grant a limited exemption for safety discussions to avoid antitrust issues. Altman responded on social media that OpenAI welcomes a federal framework for uniform safety requirements, adding that the company does not believe it has to wait for an antitrust exemption or legislation to begin building trust.