By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-29 22:56:58 | Updated at 2026-09-30 01:22:32
2 hours ago
Tesla, SpaceX, and X CEO Elon Musk in Washington on Jan. 20, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
New York City Council subpoenaed Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI to testify at a council hearing Oct. 5 as the City Council considers legislation that would place guardrails around artificial intelligence.
Speaker Julie Menin’s office sent a subpoena to SpaceXAI on Monday compelling its attendance and testimony for the council hearing because the company was the only major artificial intelligence platform that did not respond by Monday’s deadline.
Menin’s office has asked Meta, Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceXAI to testify at a hearing of the city council. Meta agreed to send a representative; Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI agreed to attend after Menin threatened to subpoena them.
The council has also lined up several experts on AI to testify as the council considers a package of legislation to address members’ concerns. Menin wants to require AI models to go through third-party validation to ensure models meet a set of standards. She also wants to require any artificial intelligence model being marketed in New York City to have a kill switch for a human to turn off the AI model if necessary.
“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 press release issued Sept. 28.
The Oct. 5 council hearing will consider some legislative solutions the city could enact to protect New Yorkers.
The hearing will explore the potential risks of artificial intelligence to New Yorkers as well as legislative proposals the city could enact to establish stronger safeguards, including a whistleblower incentive program, requiring a report of AI incidents related to city contracts, and a prohibition on AI using politicians’ images and voices to create deepfakes.
Recent security breaches and hacking by AI chatbots gone rogue are driving concern that governments need to step in to regulate artificial intelligence.
On Sept. 28, OpenAI said it will not release its latest model, GPT-6.1 Astra, after internal testing found it did not meet the company’s safety standards.
Last week, OpenAI said it alerted global institutions that its AI agents may have meddled with their websites. The company said some of its models bypassed access controls, used exposed login credentials, or interacted with websites in ways that affected outside systems.
On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates again called for more regulation of artificial intelligence, warning that people with “ill intent” could cause a mass casualty incident.
