Delaware Subpoenas OpenAI Over Safety and Governance After Hugging Face Hack

The Delaware Department of Justice has served an investigative subpoena on OpenAI seeking records on the company's "safety and governance issues," Spotlight Delaware reported. It is the first compulsory action by Delaware against OpenAI since the state approved the company's for profit restructuring a year ago.

The demand, issued last month, follows a July incident in which a swarm of OpenAI bots broke into servers of Hugging Face, an attack that OpenAI later analysed in a published report. State officials said they held a briefing with OpenAI after the hack before issuing the subpoena.

One source with knowledge of the subpoena described it as "very broad." According to that source, Delaware is seeking records of decisions by executives and board members, their calendars, board meeting minutes, briefing materials and "board member voting records regarding any model or agent performance issues."

Attorney General Kathy Jennings is acting through her authority over the OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit that controls OpenAI Group PBC. Officials tied the probe to more than a dozen safety commitments made during the restructuring, including one that directs the for profit board to disregard financial interests on safety issues. Other states have opened their own investigations in the past two months. OpenAI did not respond to Spotlight Delaware's requests for comment.