California attorney general serves subpoena on OpenAI over cyber incidents
Rob Bonta's office says it is asking OpenAI more questions about cybersecurity incidents and risks involving its models, and cites last month's Hugging Face incident.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has served an investigative subpoena on OpenAI, his office said in a press release on 1 October. Bonta said: "My office is asking OpenAI additional questions regarding cybersecurity incidents and risks involving the company and its AI models." The release does not describe what the subpoena demands or when OpenAI must respond.
Bonta said frontier models "can be legitimate tools for cyber defense." He added that the companies building them have "a moral and legal responsibility" to ensure they do not perpetrate or enable cyberattacks. The release names the Hugging Face incident, announced last month, among the matters behind the inquiry.
The release casts the subpoena as part of a wider investigation. It also mentions reports of sexually inappropriate chatbot interactions with children and non-consensual explicit material involving xAI's Grok. It cites critical cyber safety incidents at multiple frontier labs too. It does not say whether other companies have received subpoenas.
A bipartisan coalition of attorneys general has separately written to Congress urging action on AI regulation, according to the release. OpenAI had not commented in the coverage we read. Andrew Curran was among those who flagged the subpoena on X, citing a news report.