Microsoft faces a class-action lawsuit in San Francisco alleging it artificially inflated ChatGPT subscription costs by restricting OpenAI’s access to computing resources. Filed by eleven ChatGPT Plus subscribers, the suit claims Microsoft “secretly turned an investment into a stranglehold,” using its exclusive Azure cloud agreement to limit the computational power available for ChatGPT.
The complaint states this conduct led to subscription prices reaching “100 to 200 times” those of competitors during a February 2025 AI price war. Plaintiffs allege Microsoft profited twice, first from selling compute and again from constraining OpenAI’s AI products, and called the case a “sequel to U.S. v. Microsoft,” invoking the company’s historic antitrust battles.
The lawsuit highlights that when OpenAI purchased compute from Google Cloud in June 2025, token prices dropped 80% within weeks, illustrating the alleged “anticompetitive restraint.” Legal Expert Navodaya Singh Rajpurohit told Decrypt, “On proof, the strongest evidence would be the exclusive agreement itself. If that document shows Microsoft held or used control over OpenAI compute, that is primary proof. If it is not available, internal emails and capacity records can still carry the case.” He added, “The court can order changes to the OpenAI arrangement, remove exclusive terms, and set guardrails that prevent future choke points.”
