Anthropic Bans OpenClaw Creator Amid Pricing Policy Dispute

Anthropic temporarily suspended the account of Peter Steinberger, the creator of the open-source project OpenClaw, citing "suspicious" activity. The suspension occurred shortly after Anthropic implemented a pricing change that removed third-party harnesses like OpenClaw from its standard Claude subscriptions, requiring users to pay for such access separately through the company's API.

A Brief Suspension

Steinberger, who is currently employed by Anthropic rival OpenAI, announced the ban on X, sharing a screenshot of the notification he received from Anthropic. The suspension drew significant attention online, sparking various theories regarding the timing of the move. However, the account was reinstated only a few hours after the post went viral.
During the discourse, an Anthropic engineer commented on the thread, stating that the company has never banned a user specifically for utilizing OpenClaw and offered to assist with the situation. It remains unclear if this intervention was the direct cause of the account's restoration.

Pricing and Usage Conflicts

Anthropic recently updated its policy to exclude third-party harnesses from Claude subscriptions, a move Steinberger characterized as a "claw tax." The company defended the change by noting that subscriptions were not designed to accommodate the compute-intensive usage patterns associated with claws, which often involve continuous reasoning loops and automated task retries.
Steinberger disputed this justification, suggesting that the policy shift was a strategic move to lock out open-source alternatives after Anthropic integrated similar features into its own agent, Cowork. He noted that the timing of the pricing change followed the rollout of Claude Dispatch, a feature that allows users to remotely control agents and assign tasks.

Testing and Industry Tensions

Despite his role at OpenAI, Steinberger continues to test OpenClaw against Claude to ensure that updates to his project do not break functionality for its users. He emphasized that he maintains a clear separation between his work at the OpenClaw Foundation, which aims to support various model providers, and his product strategy role at OpenAI.
When questioned about his continued use of a competitor's model, Steinberger confirmed he is working on addressing the impact of Anthropic's new pricing structure for the OpenClaw community. The interaction highlighted ongoing tensions, with Steinberger remarking that while one company welcomed his contributions, the other had previously sent legal threats.