NYC Subpoenas Elon Musk and SpaceXAI in AI Safety Investigation

The council's investigation will assess whether fast-emerging risks to public safety, cybersecurity, economic stability, privacy, consumers and businesses warrant immediate legislative action to protect New Yorkers, according to a letter sent to Musk from Julie Menin, speaker of the city council.

SpaceX, Musk's reusable rocket company, merged with his AI venture, xAI, in February this year. The combined company owns X and the chatbot Grok. It went public in June and is valued at roughly $2 trillion. Last month, SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor.

Lawsuits are piling up against SpaceXAI after Grok enabled mass production of deepfake pornography based on images of real people who did not consent. The city of Baltimore has accused the company of violating consumer protection laws and engaging in deceptive trade practices by marketing its Grok image generation and editing tool as generally safe. SpaceXAI also faces a proposed class-action lawsuit filed by teenagers after Grok generated images portraying them in sexualized and debasing scenarios.

In a press release Monday, the New York City Council said Musk's testimony would occur at a rare Council Committee of the Whole hearing on Oct. 5, with all 51 members present. The hearing follows weeks of serious warnings from whistleblowers and AI executives, and reports that rogue AI agents have already inflicted damage to government databases, the release said.