The New York City Council said Tuesday that SpaceX has agreed to testify before its tech committee at a hearing scheduled for Friday at 10 a.m. ET. The agreement comes after Council Speaker Julie Menin and General Counsel Nwamaka Ejebe issued a subpoena to Elon Musk and SpaceX's AI unit on Sept. 28, compelling testimony for a hearing that took place last week.
Representatives from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Meta testified at the Oct. 5 hearing, but SpaceX did not appear. In Tuesday's statement, Menin said SpaceX agreed two days after the hearing to testify, following the council's indication that it intended to seek a judge's enforcement of the subpoena.
"Last Monday, we held a major, hours-long hearing with whistleblowers, the world's largest tech companies, and the nation's foremost experts in AI," Menin said. "Conspicuously absent was SpaceXAI, which is unacceptable."
SpaceX's AI operations stem from Musk's February folding of his AI venture, xAI, into the company, creating a conglomerate that includes its Grok models. These models are used by some federal agencies, including the Pentagon. SpaceX went public in June and is now valued at over $2 trillion, and in August it completed a $60 billion acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor.
The council's investigation began after a month of intense debate about the risks posed by advanced AI models. In its original letter ordering testimony from Musk or another SpaceX leader, the council said the investigation would help "assess whether fast-emerging risks to public safety, cybersecurity, economic stability, privacy, consumers and businesses warrant immediate legislative action to protect New Yorkers."
The council warned that SpaceX's "failure to comply" with the subpoena could subject the company to penalties or other punishment under New York City laws and regulations.
Carmen De La Rosa, chair of the tech committee, told CNBC that the council expects answers from SpaceX, adding: "With the proliferation of Elon Musk's technology at the federal level, it is even more important they come to the discussion with robust context about data privacy, safeguards," (the statement continues in the original source).