A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California accuses Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google of violating antitrust laws by coordinating to slow AI development. The complaint, brought by paid subscribers to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini, cites a Sept. 12 exchange in which industry leaders publicly aligned behind Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call to decelerate progress for safety, and a July 2026 statement acknowledging competitive pressure not to slow unilaterally. Plaintiffs argue any agreement among direct rivals to restrain output harms consumers by reducing product value, even if the stated aim is safety. Amodei suggested a narrow government waiver to facilitate cross-lab safety talks, while OpenAI’s Sam Altman backed a federal safety framework but said work shouldn’t wait for an antitrust exemption. The lawsuit lands amid political division over AI oversight: President Donald Trump has rejected regulation and said he will form an AI task force, while some lawmakers warn against granting antitrust exemptions to tech giants. The companies did not immediately comment.
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