SpaceX AI Testifies at NYC Council AI Safety Hearing: Policy Chief Appears by Video

What happened

The hearing took place as scheduled at 10 a.m. ET on October 16 at City Hall, with Gabriela Castillo Madrid, SpaceX's AI policy lead, appearing by video conference. Council Speaker Julie Menin announced on October 13 that she had secured SpaceXAI's commitment. The timeline: on September 28 the Council subpoenaed Elon Musk and SpaceX's AI unit to appear at the October 5 hearing; after the company failed to show, the Council said it would petition the New York State Supreme Court to enforce the subpoena, and SpaceX requested a meeting on October 7 before agreeing to appear. All five invited AI companies — Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and SpaceXAI — have now testified.

Self-regulation is not enough, and I am glad that we have now secured SpaceXAI's commitment to appear before the public in the coming week.

— Julie Menin, Speaker of the New York City Council (official statement, October 13)

Key facts

1. The witness: Gabriela Castillo Madrid, SpaceX's AI policy lead, who joined the company's government affairs team earlier this year after working at Musk's X and spending nearly three years at the U.S. Department of Commerce (per Fresh Blog News)
2. What the Council wants: Committee on Technology Chair Carmen De La Rosa said the company should address data privacy, safeguards and whistleblower protections; Menin said the companies should explain the safeguards they are putting in place to protect people from harm and how they will be held accountable when those safeguards fail
3. The first hearing: The October 5 session ran nearly 10 hours with 46 Council Members participating; executives from Anthropic, Google, Meta and OpenAI appeared, and whistleblowers Jacob Coxon, Daniel Kokotajlo and Alex Turner testified under oath; UK MP Jess Asato traveled to testify in person — she is suing xAI in the UK over Grok users creating and distributing sexualized images of her
4. Background: Musk folded xAI into SpaceX in February, putting the Grok models under SpaceX; they are used by some federal agencies, including the Pentagon. The Council's inquiry assesses whether emerging AI risks to public safety, cybersecurity, economic stability, privacy, consumers and businesses require legislative action