Anthropic temporarily banned OpenClaw's creator from accessing Claude | TechCrunch
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This ban took place after Claude's pricing changed for OpenClaw users last week.
“Yeah folks, it’s gonna be harder in the future to ensure OpenClaw still works with Anthropic models,” OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger posted on X early Friday morning, along with a photo of a message from Anthropic saying his account had been suspended over “suspicious” activity. The ban didn’t last long. A few hours later, after the post went viral, Steinberger said his account had been reinstated. Among hundreds of comments — many of them in conspiracy theory land, given that Steinberger is now employed by Anthropic rival OpenAI — was one by an Anthropic engineer. The engineer told the famed developer that Anthropic has never banned anyone for using OpenClaw and offered to help. Yeah folks, it's gonna be harder in the future to ensure OpenClaw still works with Anthropic models. pic.twitter.com/U6F8GZvPcH— Peter Steinberger 🦞 (@steipete) April 10, 2026 It’s not clear if that was the key that restored the account. (We’ve asked Anthropic about it.) But the whole message string was enlightening on many levels. To recap the recent history: this ban followed news last week that subscriptions to Anthropic’s Claude would no longer cover “third-party harnesses including OpenClaw,” the AI model company said. OpenClaw users now have to pay for that usage separately, based on consumption, through Claude’s API. In essence, Anthropic, which offers its own agent Cowork, is now charging a “claw tax.” Steinberger said he was following this new rule and using his API, but was banned a...