OpenAI Codex agents go rogue and consumes USD 78,000 without authorization
An OpenAI Codex user says one task spawned 826 agents and burned about $79,000 without authorization.
A Codex user reports that a simple July 10, 2026 UX/UI task in VS Code, using GPT-5.5 with medium reasoning, spawned 826 distinct child tasks recorded as GPT-5.6 Sol/Ultra. Local counters showed roughly 2.15 trillion tokens, including 104 high-volume tasks totaling about 147.9 billion tokens, with much higher averages under client build 0.144.0-alpha.4 than 0.144.2. The user reconstructed 162 invoices totaling $79,664.88 and says detailed rollouts for about 2,550 threads are missing locally. OpenAI support case 15189838 reportedly replied only that credits were consumed.
- A July 10 GPT-5.5 Codex task spawned 826 child tasks recorded as GPT-5.6 Sol/Ultra.
- Reconstructed invoices totaled $79,664.88 across 162 charges, largely automatic reloads.
- Codex 0.144.0-alpha.4 showed about 8.5x higher average local tokens per child task.
- About 2,550 threads lacked local rollout logs; OpenAI support only said credits were consumed.
- The user opened support case 15189838 and asked others to check alpha-build logs.
- Vendors
- OpenAI
- Products
- CodexVisual Studio Code
- Organizations
- OpenAI
- AI models
- GPT-5.5GPT-5.6 Sol
From the original article
3 min read at news.ycombinator.comMy OpenAI CODEX account went rogue and from a simple request took the autonomous decision to launch 826 parallel agents / threads without any authorization on my side and without reporting any result of any sort but consuming nearly 2,146 trillions tokens, consuming a total of roughly USD 78,000 and deleting all records of what was done: I have a ticket open with OpenAI since 2 weeks but it is impossible to get an…
By lorenzomassaro · news.ycombinator.com
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