Microsoft Caused OpenAI to Inflate ChatGPT Prices, Suit Says

Microsoft Corp. violated federal and California antitrust laws by restricting computing power to OpenAI Inc. while developing its own products, causing the latter to charge up to 200 times more for ChatGPT than competitors, a proposed class action filed Monday said.

Microsoft—through a years-old secret deal with OpenAI, in which it invested $13 billion—allegedly required the ChatGPT creator to solely use its processing, memory, and storage.

This harmed ChatGPT, which was publicly released in late 2022, and other generative artificial-intelligence product users by “mercilessly choking OpenAI’s compute supply” and forcing the company to pay higher-than-necessary prices, according to the lawsuit ...