OpenAI users are cancelling their subscriptions after a co-founder’s shocking donation became the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’

A growing number of ChatGPT users are canceling their $20-a-month Plus subscriptions, driven by a new activist campaign called QuitGPT that’s protesting the company’s deepening ties to the Trump administration, as reported by MIT Technology Review. This movement gained serious momentum after the massive political donations made by OpenAI president Greg Brockman became public, which many users felt was the final straw.

The campaign specifically flagged that Brockman and his wife each poured $12.5 million into President Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. That staggering amount made up almost a quarter of the roughly $102 million the PAC raised in the second half of 2025. Adding fuel to the fire, the campaign also pointed out that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, uses a résumé screening tool powered by ChatGPT-4. The federal agency has become a major political flashpoint following the fatal shootings in Minneapolis.

Many people have flooded online forums with stories about quitting the chatbot, lamenting the performance of the latest model, GPT-5.2. Some users even shared satirical memes parodying the chatbot’s perceived sycophancy. While some users are planning a “Mass Cancellation Party” in San Francisco, others are protesting the deepening entanglement between OpenAI and the Trump administration.

The QuitGPT campaign is just the latest salvo in a movement by frustrated and disaffected users

Take Alfred Stephen, a freelance software developer based in Singapore, who subscribed in September to speed up his coding work. He quickly grew frustrated with the bot’s coding abilities and its habit of delivering meandering replies. When he learned about Brockman’s donation, he knew it was time to move on. “That’s really the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he says. When Stephen canceled his subscription, a survey popped up asking what the company could have done to keep him. His response was blunt: “Don’t support the fascist regime.”

Though it’s unclear exactly how many people have joined the boycott, the QuitGPT campaign is certainly getting attention. Organizers say that more than 17,000 people have signed up on the campaign’s website, which asks people if they’ve canceled their subscriptions or committed to stop using the chatbot. An Instagram post from the campaign recently garnered more than 36 million views and 1.3 million likes.

This movement was organized by dozens of left-leaning teens and twentysomethings scattered across the US who launched the effort in late January. These activists range from climate organizers to seasoned grassroots campaigners. They were inspired by a viral video from marketing professor Scott Galloway, who argued that denting OpenAI’s subscriber base could ripple through the stock market, threatening an economic downturn that might nudge the president.

This kind of consumer action could actually work, according to Dana Fisher, a sociologist at American University. She notes that while a small wave of cancellations rarely sways a company, it can create a pressure point if enough people use their money to express their political opinions. The campaign is in the mold of Galloway’s own initiative, Resist and Unsubscribe, which urges consumers to cancel subscriptions to Big Tech platforms, including ChatGPT, as a protest against companies “driving the markets and enabling our president.”

While the company hasn’t commented on the campaign, and employees reached out to weren’t familiar with it, the movement is targeting a significant base. As of December 2025, ChatGPT had nearly 900 million weekly active users, meaning there’s a massive pool of potential subscribers ready to use that cancel button.