Four of the biggest names in AI testified under oath before the New York City Council on October 5, 2026, and one notable invitee did not show up at all.
The Council's Committee of the Whole, which includes all 51 Council members and is reserved for matters of significant citywide importance, convened at City Hall to examine the risks artificial intelligence poses to New Yorkers. According to the Council, the hearing marked the first public testimony under oath on AI risks by the leading companies building the technology.
The companies did not send their chief executives. Council Speaker Menin had earlier said she invited OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei; instead, the witnesses were Logan Graham, head of Anthropic's Frontier Red Team, Morgan Dwyer, OpenAI's head of policy development and operations, Alice Friend, Google's director of AI and emerging tech policy, and Shane Cahill, Meta's director of AI policy and legislation. With a red team lead and three policy directors at the table, several of the toughest questions, particularly around legal liability, were met with the explanation that the topic sat outside the witness's role.
A second panel drew from outside the companies: former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon testified in person, while Daniel Kokotajlo, formerly of OpenAI and now head of the AI Futures Project, and Alex Turner, formerly of Google DeepMind, testified remotely. Elon Musk's SpaceXAI was subpoenaed to compel its appearance and did not appear; Menin said the Council would seek court enforcement.
Sitting alongside the hearing was a legislative package: ten AI bills in what is known as the Menin package, including Intro 2602, which proposes penalties of 25,000 dollars per violation. The hearing's agenda, marked final by the Council's legislative information system, listed twelve meeting items led by the oversight item "Examining the Risks Posed by Artificial Intelligence."
The politics of the day were as revealing as the policy. Meta said in a statement reported by local press that it came voluntarily, arguing that earning public confidence requires rigorous safety work and transparency. Other accounts described the companies as appearing under subpoena warnings. Either way, the message from City Hall was unmistakable: the era of AI companies answering questions only on their own terms is ending, and cities are now writing the rules themselves.
