Democrats Plan AI Hearings and Subpoenas for Tech Chiefs Once They Take Congress

"AI company CEOs should be called to testify under oath," Greg Casar, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on Tuesday, according to AFP. Senator Ed Markey told tech executives they would need to "plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we'll be printing." Ted Lieu, a California congressman in the House Democratic leadership, said the new majority would pursue "reasonable guardrails on AI", and accused President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans of making "a conscious decision" to "let the AI industry run wild."

Controlling the committees lets Democrats compel testimony and internal documents, a power used in 2020 when the heads of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google were questioned about their market power. Elon Musk, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Nvidia's Jensen Huang are among the executives who could now face similar hearings. Investors are already pricing in a harder environment: chip and data centre stocks led a 5.5% fall in the Nasdaq on Thursday, its worst session since April 2025.

The election gave Democrats a reason to move. In an NBC News exit poll, 56 percent of voters said AI and data centres were "a crucial or a major factor" in their choice for Congress. More than 40 ballot measures aimed at slowing or stopping data centre growth passed on Tuesday, Semafor reported.

Bills Already Drafted

Several proposals are ready to move. The bipartisan GUARD Act, from Senator Josh Hawley's office, would protect children from potentially harmful AI companions. The AI LEAD Act, from Senators Dick Durbin and Hawley, would set a liability standard for AI systems and let individuals and governments, including state attorneys general, sue AI companies over alleged harms. Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, wants a bill requiring independent testing of AI models before release.

Danny Weiss, chief advocacy officer at Common Sense Media, said Congress should take up the GUARD Act right away and agree on basic protections, especially for children and families. Anton Dahbura, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, argued that sensible regulation would not hold the US back against China.

Some Democrats want to go further. Casar has a bill to pause development of advanced AI models. Abdul El-Sayed, elected senator for Michigan despite more than $5 million spent against him by Musk's America PAC, has called for a "full-on pause" on the most powerful systems and a US-China treaty to "pause and ban superintelligence." An unnamed Democratic staffer told Semafor the party could "subpoena the hell" out of the AI executive order Trump signed in June, which has not been fully released.

A Divided Majority

Agreeing on what to pass will be harder. Semafor reported that Democrats in both chambers doubt Casar's pause bill has broad support, and that Senate leaders are expected to side with moderates. "We know how important this is, and it is going to be a high priority for Democrats," said Representative Greg Stanton of the New Democrat Coalition, adding: "Not that we've reached a specific agreement on a specific policy." Representative Josh Gottheimer of the Problem Solvers Caucus said the party was in "surprisingly broad agreement" on AI.

The industry had begun hedging before the vote. The main pro-AI political fund, financed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz, received no new donations from April through the end of September, according to AFP, and Axios has reported that Meta has hired former Democratic staffers to lobby Congress. Musk was the only major tech leader to comment on the result by Thursday, joking that "Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now."

Adam Kovacevich, chief executive of the industry-funded Chamber of Progress, cautioned: "Let's not confuse an anti-Trump wave with an anti-tech mandate." Criticism is also coming from the right. Daniel Cochrane of the conservative Institute for Family Studies said concerns about AI's effects on jobs, children and local communities had shifted votes.

Hearings and subpoenas need no presidential signature, but legislation does. Any AI bill will need to get past Trump, who has threatened to veto bills he dislikes and remains in office until January 2029.