Elon Musk’s SpaceX is sending a senior official to New York City Friday to testify in front of the City Council about AI safety.
Gabriela Castillo Madrid, SpaceX’s senior manager of global government affairs, will face questions starting at 10 a.m. ET, according to PIX11.
The City Council said her appearance before the Committee on Technology comes after New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin “issued a subpoena compelling the firm’s testimony, followed by subsequent conversations about the Council’s intention to have it enforced by a state judge.”
“Last Monday, we held a major, hours-long hearing with whistleblowers, the world’s largest tech companies, and the nation’s foremost experts in AI,” Menin said in a statement. “Conspicuously absent was SpaceXAI, which is unacceptable. New Yorkers and the public at large deserve to hear directly from the companies developing this powerful technology about the safeguards they are putting in place to protect people from harm and how they will be held accountable when those safeguards fail.”
“SpaceXAI tried to circumvent our city’s public conversation on the dangers of AI, and we are prepared to ask similar questions expecting better responses. With the proliferation of Elon Musk’s technology at the federal level, it is even more important they come to the discussion with robust context about data privacy, safeguards, and whistleblower protections,” added Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, Chair of the Committee on Technology.
The Council said in last week’s hearing, “Senior representatives from Anthropic, Google, Meta, and OpenAI all agreed to testify before the Council, with only SpaceXAI declining to participate,” and it also included “testimony under oath from major industry whistleblowers, including Jacob Coxon, Daniel Kokotajlo, and Alex Turner.”