Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google are facing a lawsuit alleging that the companies coordinated efforts to slow the pace of artificial intelligence development under the banner of safety.
The case was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday. The plaintiffs argue that any agreement among major AI rivals to limit development could violate antitrust laws and reduce the value of paid AI services for consumers.
The lawsuit points to September 12, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for industry-wide cooperation to slow the development of increasingly capable AI systems and focus more closely on safety. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis subsequently responded publicly to the proposal.
The case has been brought by four paid users of AI services, including ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini, on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of subscribers.
Amodei had previously acknowledged potential antitrust concerns and suggested that government involvement could help enable safety discussions between AI companies.
Altman said OpenAI supported a federal framework with consistent safety requirements but did not believe companies needed to wait for new legislation to begin safety efforts.
The lawsuit comes amid a broader debate over AI safety, competition, regulation and how quickly leading companies should develop increasingly powerful systems.
