Microsoft is pulling the plug on its internal Claude Code licenses after the pilot program’s costs spiraled beyond expectations. The cancellation, targeting the company’s Experiences & Devices division, will take effect by June 30, 2026, barely six months after the pilot launched in December 2025.
The directive is simple: developers should use GitHub Copilot CLI instead.
The budget math that broke everything
After deploying Claude Code to 5,000 engineers, Uber reportedly burned through its entire 2026 AI budget of $3.4B in just four months. Monthly usage rates among Uber’s engineers hit 84-95% by April 2026. Per-engineer API costs ranged between $500 and $2,000 monthly.
The industry-wide pricing reckoning
