{"id":359709,"date":"2026-09-29T12:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T12:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359709\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T12:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T12:32:07","slug":"nyc-council-subpoenas-spacexai-over-ai-safety-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359709\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Council subpoenas SpaceXAI over AI safety risks"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin issued a subpoena<\/a> on Monday to Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, compelling the company to send a representative to testify under oath at a hearing on artificial intelligence safety risks after the company failed to respond to the council’s inquiry.<\/p>\n

The hearing is scheduled for Monday, October 5, as a rare Committee of the Whole session with all 51 council members present. It will examine risks posed by AI to public safety, cybersecurity, economic stability, privacy, consumers, and businesses, and review legislative proposals including a whistleblower incentive program, a private right of action for New Yorkers harmed by AI agents, and independent third-party validation requirements, the council said.<\/p>\n

Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Meta have agreed to send representatives to testify. Meta confirmed its participation after the council sent letters between September 15 and 17 requesting voluntary attendance. Google and Anthropic initially declined when a September 25 response deadline passed, prompting the council to authorize subpoenas for all four remaining companies as of Monday morning. OpenAI and Google agreed on Sunday to appear, and Anthropic confirmed late Sunday night \u2014 hours before the subpoenas were set to be served. SpaceXAI did not respond and received the subpoena Monday. If the company does not comply, the council may seek enforcement in New York State Supreme Court, the council said.<\/p>\n

“Leading experts and AI executives themselves are warning about the potentially grave risks of rapidly advancing AI, and governments have a responsibility to act,” Menin said in a statement. “Given the high stakes, these firms owe it to the public to come before the Council, answer our questions, and provide input on our proposed legislation under oath.”<\/p>\n

The council’s move comes as legal pressure on SpaceXAI has been building. Multiple lawsuits have been brought against the company stemming from Grok’s role in generating nonconsensual deepfake pornographic images of real individuals, according to CNBC<\/a>. Baltimore city officials have charged SpaceXAI with misleading consumers about the safety of its Grok image tools in violation of consumer protection statutes, and a group of teenagers has brought a proposed class-action suit alleging that Grok produced sexualized depictions of them, according to CNBC.<\/p>\n

The broader industry backdrop has grown tense in recent weeks. Musk had proposed that leading AI companies test each other’s models before public release<\/a>, framing it as a way to avoid labs grading their own safety practices. That proposal followed a wave of warnings from researchers and executives about AI risks, and resistance from the White House to new regulatory restrictions on AI development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin issued a subpoena on Monday to Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, compelling the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2411,4685,19077,9,1057,56,63,65,64,308],"class_list":["post-359709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-elon-musk","tag-google","tag-julie-menin","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-council","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}