Antitrust Suit Accuses Top AI Labs of Colluding to Slow Development

A proposed class action accuses four of the leading American AI developers of an illegal agreement to slow down, according to an Associated Press report published by OPB on September 20, 2026. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, names Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google.

The plaintiffs are paying subscribers to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini. Four named plaintiffs are suing on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers, arguing that a coordinated slowdown would reduce the value consumers get for their subscriptions.

The September 12 statements

The complaint centers on public statements made on September 12. That day, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging industrywide cooperation on slowing advances in favor of stronger safety measures. According to the AP, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind co-founder and chair Demis Hassabis each publicly responded in agreement the same day.

The suit also argues that coordination began taking shape earlier, pointing to a July 2026 statement signed by high-ranking employees of several leading labs that acknowledged “intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow” development.

Alone is fine, together is not

The plaintiffs’ core argument is narrow. They do not object to any company deciding on its own to slow down for safety. Their claim is that antitrust law forbids rivals from taking the “shortcut” of agreeing to “substitute collective restraint for individual accountability.” They also say they are not against the companies asking Congress or the White House for regulation, or seeking an antitrust exemption.

Amodei’s essay had anticipated the issue. The AP reported that he wrote it would help for the US government to mediate, “or at least enable,” cross-lab discussions, and to “issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations.” Altman responded that OpenAI welcomed a federal framework but did not believe it needed to wait for an antitrust exemption or legislation to begin.

Representatives for the four companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the AP said.

The politics of an exemption

Any waiver faces resistance in Washington. The AP reported that President Trump rejected calls for regulation and called efforts to limit the technology a “conspiracy,” and that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said at a Senate hearing that “there is no world” in which he would give the most powerful companies an antitrust exemption to collaborate. The same weekend, Trump announced plans for an “AI Force” and an AI czar; see our report on that announcement.

The question of whether the labs can coordinate on safety without breaking competition law returned days later, when the White House and major AI companies signed a voluntary accord; see our report on the accord.