Anthropic briefly suspends OpenClaw developer account amid API usage changes

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 16:05:00 +0200

Peter Steinberger, creator of the OpenClaw AI tool, experienced a temporary suspension from Anthropic’s Claude platform due to alleged 'suspicious' activity. The ban was lifted after a few hours, following viral attention on social media. The suspension coincided with a recent policy change by Anthropic, which now requires separate payment for third-party integrations like OpenClaw, citing that these 'claws' are more compute-intensive than standard prompts. Steinberger emphasized that he complied with the new API-based payment system, suggesting the suspension may have been coincidental or mistakenly enforced. He clarified that his use of Claude is strictly for testing purposes to ensure OpenClaw remains compatible with various AI models, separating this from his work at OpenAI, where he contributes to future product strategy. The episode sparked discussion online, with some users interpreting the timing as Anthropic restricting open-source tools after adopting similar features in its