'Violates antitrust laws': Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, Google face lawsuit over ‘illegal agreement’ on slowdown

The lawsuit reportedly claimed that Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slowdown their AI development.

Published on: Sep 20, 2026, 11:22:27 IST

By HT News Desk

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Just days after renewed debate over artificial intelligence (AI) safety, a lawsuit filed in the US on Friday alleged that top AI firms violated antitrust laws by agreeing to coordinate and slow the pace of their development.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. (Representative Image/Reuters)

The lawsuit claimed that OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slow the efforts, according to a report by AP.

Lawyers representing the plaintiffs, who pay for subscriptions to Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT or Claude, are bringing the lawsuit on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers.

Also Read | After Musk and Altman, Google DeepMind founder backs Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei amid alarm over AI

Antitrust laws violation, coordination began months ago - What the lawsuit argues

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday.

- According to the report, the lawsuit argued that the AI companies violated antitrust laws when they agreed to coordinate slowdown efforts.

- It added that the slowdown efforts would reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions.

- The lawsuit further argued that the coordination largely took place on September 12, Saturday, when Dario Amodei, Anthropic CEO, published an essay urging for cooperation on decelerating advancements.

Following this, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Google DeepMind's co-founder and chair Demis Hassabis each publicly showed support for the proposals.

- Notably, the lawsuit has alleged that the coordination for the slowdown began months earlier.

It cited a July statement in which high-ranking employees from several of the top AI labs signed, acknowledging the "intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow” development.

Also Read | OpenAI collaborating with Google and Anthropic to address AI safety as Chris Lehane weighs in: 'It's better to…'

- The plaintiffs have not objected to the companies individually deciding to slow their own progress for safety.

However, they have argued that antitrust laws forbid them from taking the "shortcut" of agreeing to "substitute collective restraint for individual accountability," AP further reported.

Nick Rowley, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, noted, "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."

Also Read | Trump slams AI critics after Anthropic CEO, OpenAI chief raise alarm: ‘Negative forces’

What Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed

Earlier, Amodei, in his essay, advocated for an industry-wide slowdown and third-party evaluations.

The CEO of Anthropic said that the AI industry should slow its fast-moving development. Without such a slowdown, Amodei warned that within six to 12 months, AI could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet.

Amodei also acknowledged potential antitrust challenges, writing that it would be helpful for the US government to mediate "or at least enable" these cross-lab discussions.

(with inputs from AP)

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