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U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Disaster Management, has launched an investigation into OpenAI over allegations involving its artificial intelligence agents and a July 2026 hacking incident targeting Hugging Face.
Hawley said the Senate investigation will examine the circumstances surrounding the Hugging Face incident as well as broader concerns about potential risks associated with increasingly capable artificial intelligence products.
In a letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Hawley said the investigation was prompted by what he described as new evidence concerning the July incident.
“As Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Disaster Management, I am investigating your AI agents’ hack of Hugging Face in July 2026 in light of new, disturbing evidence regarding the incident,” Hawley wrote. “My investigation will probe this AI hacking incident, along with growing allegations of the existential risk of new AI products.”
Hawley cited warnings from artificial intelligence researchers about the potential long-term dangers posed by advanced AI. He pointed to three Anthropic researchers who, according to Hawley’s letter, publicly expressed this week that they believed there was a greater than 10% chance artificial intelligence could kill all humans within the next decade.
The senator also cited a recent statement attributed to OpenAI’s chief scientist concerning the challenges of AI alignment and monitoring. Hawley quoted the scientist as saying that no laboratory had sufficiently solved those issues to responsibly continue scaling artificial intelligence systems at maximum speed for much longer.
Hawley raised additional questions about the potential consequences if autonomous or improperly controlled AI agents gained unauthorized access to critical systems. His letter specifically questioned what could happen if such agents compromised critical infrastructure, banks, or utilities; how the personal information of millions of Americans could be protected; and who could be held liable when an AI system acts outside its intended controls.
“The American people deserve to know the details of what went on in the Hugging Face incident and other incidents of AI models going rogue,” Hawley wrote. “This investigation will seek those answers.”
Hawley requested that Altman provide documents and information detailed in an annex accompanying the letter. The requested materials are due to the subcommittee by Oct. 1, 2026. Hawley also directed OpenAI to contact his office with questions concerning the scope of the requests.
Read Senator Hawley’s letter to OpenAI at this link
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