Lawsuit says Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown

AI company chief exectives, clockwise from top left: Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk and Sam Altman of OpenAI. (Associated Press ) By Kaitlyn Huamani Sept. 19, 2026 11:02 AM PT 3 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . The four leading AI companies — Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google — face a federal antitrust lawsuit in Northern California alleging an illegal pact to slow development and shortchange paying subscribers. Plaintiffs say a flurry of public statements urging industrywide coordination to decelerate AI restricts competition and reduces the value of ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini subscriptions. The case spotlights a growing global clash over who should police AI risks, as critics warn private deals among tech titans could shape innovation, safety standards and consumer choice without public oversight. A new lawsuit claims Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slow the pace of their respective AI development. The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the leading AI companies violated antitrust laws when they agreed to coordinate slowdown efforts, and that doing so would reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions. “AI will quickly spin out of human control and could kill us all if we allow AI safety and protocol ... to be controlled by private self-serving agreements between the world’s most powerful ‘for profit’ technology companies,” said Nick Rowley, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. Advertisement The coordination largely took place on Sept. 12, the lawsuit argues, when Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei published an essay calling for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures. That same day, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis each publicly responded to Amodei’s proposals in agreement. It’s clear that an agreement among the chief rivals in AI that their progress “should be slower than competition would otherwise produce has an anticompetitive effect on consumers,” the plaintiffs argue. Lawyers representing four named plaintiffs, who pay for subscriptions to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, SpaceAI’s Grok or Google’s Gemini, are bringing the suit on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers to those services. Advertisement Representatives for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. In his initial essay proposing the slowdown, Amodei acknowledged potential antitrust challenges, writing that it would be helpful for the U.S. government to mediate “or at least enable” these cross-lab discussions. The government wouldn’t have to participate, he wrote, but would need to “issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations.” In response, Altman said on social media that OpenAI welcomes the idea of a “federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements,” but said “we do not believe we need to wait for an anti-trust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence.” While the recent conversations about pacing development were spurred by increasing concerns about AI evading human control, several leaders in the AI space have long talked about developing a shared set of standards or otherwise coordinating to ensure safety efforts remained paramount. Huamani writes for the Associated Press. More to Read AI rivals found rare agreement on safety. Putting it into practice is harder Sept. 16, 2026 Tech leaders say they want to slow down the development of AI amid growing fear Sept. 15, 2026 California lawmakers urge criminal penalties, emergency legislation to rein in unchecked AI Sept. 13, 2026