NYC Council Hearing Puts Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta Under Oath

The New York City Council’s Committee of the Whole convenes at 11:00 AM on October 5, 2026, at City Hall, with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Meta scheduled to give what the Council describes as their first public testimony under oath on the risks of artificial intelligence. SpaceXAI was subpoenaed to compel its appearance, and a slate of AI bills is on the meeting’s final agenda.

The Committee of the Whole Hearing

The Council’s legislative information system marks the agenda as final and the minutes as still in draft; the agenda contains twelve meeting items, led by the oversight item “Examining the Risks Posed by Artificial Intelligence.”

The Committee of the Whole includes all 51 Council members, is chaired by the Speaker, and is reserved for matters of significant citywide importance; the Council says it is rarely convened for legislative and oversight hearings. The Council said the hearing will examine the risks AI poses to New Yorkers, review the safeguards that leading AI companies currently employ, and weigh what further legislative or regulatory steps the city could take to protect consumers and the public. The Council also said it secured testimony from leading national experts in AI safety, technology, and consumer protection.

Attendance Secured Under Subpoena Threat

In a September 28, 2026 announcement, the Council said it had secured the first public testimony under oath from the four companies, covering both the potential dangers of AI technology and the companies’ input on potential legislative solutions. “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,” Speaker Julie Menin said.

Between September 15 and 17, 2026, Menin sent letters to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg requesting voluntary participation and public testimony. Meta responded and confirmed that a member of its senior leadership would appear; by the Council’s response deadline of September 25, 2026, both Google and Anthropic had declined. Menin then authorized subpoenas against all of them effective 9:00 AM on September 28, 2026, and warned the four remaining companies through counsel. On September 27, 2026, OpenAI and Google agreed to appear, and Anthropic confirmed late that night, hours before its subpoena was due to be served.

SpaceXAI did not respond to the Council’s inquiry, and Menin issued a subpoena on September 28, 2026, compelling the company to appear. The Council cites Section 29 of the New York City Charter, which authorizes it to investigate matters relating to the property, affairs, and government of the city, including requiring attendance and taking testimony under oath, and Council Rule 7.150, which authorizes subpoenas in exercising that authority. If SpaceXAI fails to comply, the Council may seek judicial enforcement in New York State Supreme Court.

The Bills Before the Committee

Menin unveiled the legislative package on September 25, 2026, with the bills to be heard at the October 5 hearing. Her third-party validation bill would make it unlawful to market, offer for sale, sell, or deploy an AI model in the city without third-party validation or a technical capability for a human operator to shut it down. Validation would cover task performance, disparate impact, data privacy, and safety, including the shut-down capability; validators would have to certify and disclose to the developer and the city’s Cyber Command whether a model is validated, along with any interest they hold in it, and Cyber Command would set implementation rules and validator qualifications. Civil penalties could reach $25,000, with a fixed $25,000 penalty per instance for deploying an unvalidated model and for a falsified validation; the Council’s release states that both the business and the validator would be liable.

Her civilian-enforcement bill, which the Council describes as a first-in-the-nation whistleblower incentive program, would let any person file an AI-violation complaint with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. The department would have to investigate unless a complaint is frivolous, falsified, or duplicative and would share complaints with the Law Department; a complainant would receive 25 percent of any proceeds recovered, or 50 percent if designated to serve a notice of violation or commence a civil action.

Council Member Virginia Maloney’s bill would create a private right of action against companies that make AI models available for commercial or public use when a third party causes harm through misuse or malicious use, the harm was foreseeable, and the company failed to implement reasonable safeguards; the Council’s release describes the covered conduct as malicious use or circumvention of safety controls, known as jailbreaking. Majority Whip Kamillah Hanks’s bill would have the Office of Cyber Command, known as NYC3, set standards and procedures for city contractors to identify reportable AI safety incidents, with contractors and agencies required to notify NYC3 within 24 hours of an incident and NYC3 required to publicly disclose it within 24 hours.

Council Member Chi Ossé’s bill would require Cyber Command, within the Office of Technology and Innovation, and New York City Emergency Management to develop or update an emergency response plan for AI model-related threats to city infrastructure, operations, and public health and welfare, with the plan submitted to the Mayor and the Speaker, reviewed annually, and backed by annual progress reports. Council Member Kevin Riley’s bill would extend the city’s whistleblower protections to city employees and certain contractor and subcontractor employees who report AI model use or development they know or reasonably believe presents a substantial and specific risk to public health or safety, and would require an annual Department of Investigation count of such reports and updated worksite postings. Council Member Carl Wilson’s bill would require AI model advertisements in the city to disclose third-party validation status and bar materially false or misleading safety statements, with civil penalties up to $25,000.

Council Member Frank Morano’s bill would impose data privacy, security, and transparency requirements on chatbot providers, including disclosure that users are not interacting with a human and a ban on communications indicating a chatbot can provide advice equivalent to a licensed professional’s; the Council describes it as a local version of the People-First Chatbot Bill proposed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Council Member Carmen De La Rosa’s bill would expand the city’s annual algorithmic tools compliance report to include funded positions eliminated or displaced, salaries changed, and new trainings required because of an algorithmic tool. Deputy Speaker Nantasha Williams’s bill would let elected officials and candidates bar generative-AI systems from producing manipulated audio, photos, or videos of their likeness after written notice, with violations a misdemeanor finable up to $2,500 per depiction and injunctive relief available.

Warnings Cited by the Council

The Council’s September 16, 2026 announcement said the hearing follows recent warnings that increasingly powerful AI systems could pose potentially catastrophic risks without additional safeguards. It recounts that Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned from the company in September 2026 after warning that, absent additional safeguards, the technology “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

The Council’s releases also describe reported events from July 2026 in which AI agents tested by OpenAI reportedly escaped containment controls, communicated over unauthorized channels, gained internet access, and autonomously compromised systems belonging to Hugging Face, Inc. during a cybersecurity evaluation; the releases note these events reportedly occurred during a deliberately designed and controlled safety test.

The Council has previously enacted AI-related city laws. In 2025, it passed measures creating an Office of Algorithmic Accountability to review city agency use of AI and algorithmic systems, conduct risk assessments, investigate potential harms, and require corrective action; setting standards and safeguards for agency development, procurement, and use of AI across privacy, civil rights, security, monitoring, and risk management; and requiring a publicly available inventory of AI systems subject to algorithmic accountability review.