Four AI firms sued for slowdown deal

A lawsuit filed Friday claims Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google violated antitrust laws by coordinating to slow their AI development, reducing value for paying subscribers.

The alleged coordination happened Sept. 12

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging industrywide cooperation on slowing AI advancement for safety. OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google leaders publicly agreed the same day.

Plaintiffs say slower pace harms consumers

Four paid subscribers to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Gemini are suing on behalf of a nationwide class, arguing that an agreement to slow progress below competitive levels reduces consumer value.

“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.”

Amodei sought government mediation

In his essay, Amodei acknowledged antitrust concerns and asked the government to mediate cross-lab safety discussions or issue a narrow waiver for certain safety conversations.

Trump opposes regulation and exemptions

President Trump rejected calls for AI regulation, claiming they are a conspiracy that would bankrupt the industry. He opposes giving tech companies antitrust exemptions to collaborate.

Congress skeptical of antitrust waiver

Senator Josh Hawley said there is no justification for exempting the world's most powerful companies from antitrust law, as they could use it to collude and stifle competition.