Codex CLI bug let some Plus users run 1,000 parallel agents with billions of tokens daily — no charge
A group of users on Plus accounts report that a bug gave them effectively un to the service for over a week. With a specific hooks in place, they claim to have run up to 1,000 simultaneously and consumed billions of tokens per day without hitting any or incurring charges.
The apparent cause is that the LLM processing their requests was not wired to their account's billing and usage-tracking system, meaning real compute was used but never billed. There is no official response from OpenAI yet, and it is unclear whether the bug has been patched or whether retroactive charges will follow.
Key points
- Users with a specific hooks setup reported unlimited usage for roughly one week
- Up to 1,000 and billions of tokens per day were reportedly consumed on standard Plus accounts
- The bug appears to stem from LLM usage not being linked to per-account billing meters
- No official patch confirmation or OpenAI statement has been issued as of the report
- Scope of affected users and whether charges will be applied retroactively remains unknown