A new lawsuit claims Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slow the pace of their respective AI development.
The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the leading AI companies violated antitrust laws when they agreed to coordinate slowdown efforts, and that doing so would reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions.
The coordination largely took place on Sept. 12, the lawsuit argues, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures. That same day, OpenAI's Sam Altman, SpaceXAI's Elon Musk and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis each publicly responded to Amodei's proposals in agreement.
It's clear that an agreement among the chief rivals in AI that their progress “should be slower than competition would otherwise produce has an anticompetitive effect on consumers,” the plaintiffs argue.
Lawyers representing four named plaintiffs, who pay for subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Gemini, are bringing the suit on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers to those services.
“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,” said Nick Rowley, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
Representatives for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
In his initial essay proposing the slowdown, Amodei acknowledged potential antitrust challenges, writing that it would be helpful for the US government to mediate “or at least enable” these cross-lab discussions. The government wouldn't need to participate, he wrote, but would need to “issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations.”
In response, Altman said on social media that OpenAI welcomes the idea of a “federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements,” but said “we do not believe we need to wait for an anti-trust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence.”
While the recent conversations about pacing development were spurred by increasing concerns about AI evading human control, several leaders in the AI space have long talked about developing a shared set of standards or otherwise coordinating to ensure safety efforts remained paramount.
This combination of photos shows CEO & Co-Founder of Anthropic Dario Amodei, top left, on Jan. 23, 2025, CEO of Google DeepMind Demis Hassabis, top right, and CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, bottom left, on June 17, 2026, and CEO of SpaceXAI Elon Musk, bottom right, on Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
The economy, inflation and how those forces could impact the lives of Americans were front and center over the past week. Trips to the grocery store and gas station are more painful than they were last year, and rising costs are impacting the decisions of both households and businesses.
Here’s a snapshot of prominent economic data and news that occurred over the past week and what it potentially means for you.
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate Wednesday for the first time since 2023 in an effort to quell stubbornly high inflation, and the central bank signaled another rate hike could occur later this year.
The quarter-point increase lifts the Fed’s key rate to about 3.9% and, over time, could result in higher borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards. In a set of quarterly projections, the Fed also signaled its rate-setting committee could raise it a second time to 4.1%.
The move comes as Americans are already struggling with high costs for groceries, gas and housing. Affordability has taken on a leading role in the upcoming midterm elections, just seven weeks away.
Home shoppers holding out for relief from rising mortgage rates may be in for a long wait.
The weekly average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan has been rising for months and this week climbed to just below 7% — its highest level in over 19 months.
The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rose to 6.95% from 6.76% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.26%.
This is the fourth week in a row that mortgage rates have moved higher. The average rate hasn’t reached this level since Jan. 30, 2025.
Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also rose this week. That average rate increased to 6.26% from 6.09% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.41%.
Consumers stepped up their spending at a better-than-anticipated pace in August after an unexpectedly sharp pullback in July.
Retail sales rose 1.2% last month after recording a revised 0.5% dip in July, according to Commerce Department data released Wednesday. Economists were expecting a 0.7% gain for the month, according to FactSet.
The decline in July was notable because there had been few signs of fatigue from U.S. consumers. Americans spent heavily during the World Cup and Amazon Prime Day sales this summer. That followed heavy retail traffic in April and May as Americans dipped into their government tax refunds.
Excluding business at gas stations, retail sales rose 1.1% in August. The government figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.
Sales at clothing and accessories stores were up 0.7%, while furniture and home furnishings stores saw a 0.9% increase. Online retailers registered a 2.6% gain.
The number of people applying for unemployment benefits dropped sharply last week, another sign that layoffs remain rare and most Americans enjoy job security.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims slid to 196,000, the fewest since mid-July and down from 206,000 the week before. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, dropped to 203,250.
Economists had expected claims to come in at 207,500, according to a survey by the data firm FactSet.
Claims for jobless benefits are a proxy for layoffs, and economists watch them because they can be a sign of where the job market is headed. For the past year, claims have mostly stayed within a historically low range of 200,000 to 230,000 a week.
Wall Street stumbled to close out an up -and- down week.
The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in the final day of trading, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down. The Nasdaq composite was fighting to stay positive, but just barely.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, got to nearly $110 early this week, up from a little over $70 in July. It has been seesawing since.
It briefly dropped below $102 in overnight before erasing much of the loss and pulling back to $104.07. But oil pointed lower for the week.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Apple CEO John Ternus and Deirdre O'brien, Vice President of Retail, open the Apple store on Fifth Avenue for Apple's launch of the iPhone 18 Pro, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Kevin Warsh speaks during a news conference at the Federal Reserve in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
