Anthropic Requires Claude Code Subscribers to Pay Extra for OpenClaw Usage

Anthropic announced that Claude Code subscribers must pay additional fees to use third-party tools like OpenClaw starting April 5, 2026, at 12 p.m. PT, with Boris Cherny explaining that Claude subscriptions were not built for such usage patterns. OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger and Dave Morin negotiated unsuccessfully to prevent the restriction, achieving only a one-week delay, while Anthropic offered affected subscribers a one-time credit equal to their monthly plan cost. The policy change came days after Anthropic's Claude Code command line interface source code leaked widely on GitHub due to internal human error, though the leak did not include the Claude models themselves. In February 2026, Sam Altman hired Steinberger for millions of dollars to drive OpenAI's personal agent development, with OpenClaw transitioning to an open source project supported by OpenAI despite originally being built specifically for Claude.

Anthropic's decision to restrict OpenClaw access for Claude subscribers

• ▪Anthropic began imposing stricter Claude session limits every 5 hours of usage during business hours from 5am-11am PT.
• ▪Claude subscriptions no longer support third-party tools like OpenClaw starting at 12 p.m. PT on Saturday, April 5, 2026.
• ▪Boris Cherny is the head of Claude Code at Anthropic.
• ▪Boris Cherny stated that Anthropic's subscriptions were not built for the usage patterns of third-party tools like OpenClaw.

OpenClaw creator's response and OpenAI acquisition

• ▪Peter Steinberger and Dave Morin attempted to talk Anthropic out of the OpenClaw restriction but only managed to delay it by one week.
• ▪OpenClaw was released in November 2025.
• ▪Peter Steinberger joined OpenAI in February 2026.
• ▪Sam Altman stated that Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to drive the next generation of personal agents.
• ▪Sam Altman hired Peter Steinberger for millions of dollars.

Claude Code source code leak incident

• ▪Anthropic publicly acknowledged the Claude Code source code leak and termed it human error.
• ▪The Claude Code source code leak did not include the Claude models themselves.
• ▪The entire source code for Anthropic's Claude Code command line interface application leaked and was disseminated widely on GitHub.

Perspective of Peter Steinberger and OpenClaw supporters

• ▪Peter Steinberger and Dave Morin negotiated with Anthropic to delay the OpenClaw restriction, achieving only a one-week postponement.

Perspective of OpenAI

• ▪OpenAI hired Peter Steinberger for millions of dollars to lead development of the next generation of personal AI agents.

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