NYC Council Subpoenas Musk's SpaceXAI as OpenAI, Google and Anthropic Agree to Testify Under Oath

City Council Speaker Julie Menin announced Monday that Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta have all agreed to send representatives to testify at a rare Committee of the Whole hearing on October 5, where they will face questions about the risks of fast-moving artificial intelligence and weigh in on a package of proposed city AI safety laws.

The catch: aside from Meta, none of them agreed willingly. Menin said the companies only confirmed their attendance after the Council sent follow-up letters explicitly threatening to use its subpoena power.

"These companies have a significant presence in New York City and collectively employ tens of thousands of New Yorkers," 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."

Elon Musk's SpaceXAI was the only invited company that did not respond to the Council's letters at all. In response, Menin issued what the Council described as a rare subpoena, legally compelling the company to appear at the October 5 hearing.

The Council's announcement framed the testimony as the first public, under-oath appearance by the major AI labs since a recent wave of troubling incident reports — including whistleblower warnings and reports that rogue AI agents have already inflicted damage on government databases.

Menin had sent letters to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Musk, with a response deadline of Friday, September 25. Meta was the only company to agree to attend before the subpoena threat landed; the other three reversed course only after the explicit warning, while SpaceXAI stayed silent.

The October 5 hearing will convene all 51 Council members — a format the Council called rare — to examine whether "fast-emerging risks to public safety, cybersecurity, economic stability, privacy, consumers and businesses warrant immediate legislative action to protect New Yorkers."

Also under review: a slate of AI bills Menin unveiled on September 25. The proposals would bar businesses from deploying AI systems in the city without third-party validation, require kill switches on AI systems, create a first-in-the-nation program letting whistleblowers collect a share of fines recovered from AI companies, and impose a $25,000 penalty each time required validation is missing or falsified. Companies would also have to report covered safety incidents involving city contracts within 24 hours.

The move comes as Congress remains on the sidelines — and days after New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that developer registration under the state's RAISE Act begins in November. With the Trump administration rejecting calls for federal regulation, cities and states are increasingly writing their own rules.

October 5 will reveal which executives actually show up — and what they are willing to commit to, under oath, on the record.