NYC Council Subpoenas Elon Musk in AI Safety Investigation

The New York City Council has issued a subpoena to Elon Musk, requiring him or another representative of SpaceXAI to testify in an investigation concerning artificial intelligence safety risks, according to a report by CNBC Business (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/28/elon-musk-spacexai-subpoenaed-by-nyc-in-ai-safety-investigation.html).

Musk's testimony is scheduled for an Oct. 5 hearing before a rare Council Committee of the Whole with all 51 members present. In correspondence signed by Council Speaker Julie Menin and council attorney Nwamaka Ejebe, lawmakers stated that the inquiry will evaluate whether fast-emerging risks to public safety, cybersecurity, economic stability, privacy, consumers, and businesses warrant immediate legislative action.

The council stated in a press release that the session follows weeks of warnings from whistleblowers and executives, alongside reports of rogue AI agents inflicting damage on government databases. Other leading AI developers—including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta—have already agreed to send representatives to testify, the council confirmed to CNBC.

The legal demand comes amid mounting regulatory and civil scrutiny for SpaceXAI. Musk merged his aerospace venture SpaceX with xAI in February, uniting social network X and chatbot Grok under a single entity that went public in June at a valuation of roughly $2 trillion. Last month, the conglomerate completed a $60 billion acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor.

SpaceXAI is also defending against legal challenges over Grok's image generation and editing capabilities. The city of Baltimore has accused the company of deceptive trade practices and consumer protection violations after the tool generated nonconsensual explicit deepfakes of real people. The company separately faces a proposed class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of teenagers over sexualized and debasing AI-generated imagery.