Overview

• Eleven ChatGPT Plus subscribers filed a class action in the Northern District of California seeking to represent U.S. consumers who purchased the service from late 2022.
• The complaint alleges a 2019 exclusivity clause required OpenAI to use Azure for commercial models, giving Microsoft control over compute, restricting output, and degrading quality and speed.
• Plaintiffs say ChatGPT token prices were 100 to 200 times competitors’ rates during the early 2025 price war, citing DeepSeek’s low-cost entry as the market shock that exposed the disparity.
• The filing asserts that OpenAI’s June 2025 shift to Google Cloud ended Microsoft’s exclusivity, after which token prices fell about 80% within weeks and delayed features launched.
• The suit seeks treble damages, restitution, a permanent bar on exclusive compute deals, and disclosure of internal records, and it alleges Microsoft still retains contractual power to throttle OpenAI’s supply.