Oversight Democrats Vote to Subpoena Elon Musk & Get Answers for Americans, Republicans Run to Muzzle Musk

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene admitted that she had not read the AI provision of Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill before voting for it, and lamented how much it threatens to harm her constituents:  “People are going to go hungry.  They’re not going to have paychecks.  They’re not going to put roofs over their families’ heads.”  She vowed, “When we get to vote on this bill again, I will be voting no because of this clause, and we will be working on this further.”

• Similarly, Rep. Scott Perry recognized the dangers of unregulated, unfettered AI use across federal and state governments alike.  “How in the hell are we in here telling everybody that we’ve got to incorporate [AI] into the federal government, state government, all levels of government, including like national defense, nuclear security, when we know these things are occurring?” 

• Rep. Greene tried to claim, “While this bill was going through committees and being discussed in the House of Representatives, no one on either side of the aisle that I know of—Republican or Democrat—brought up this particular clause.”  Rep. Lori Trahan, who waived onto the Committee for the hearing, set the record straight, saying:  “We had robust debate on the Energy and Commerce Committee with several Democratic members, myself included, calling attention to this provision during and after our 26-hour markup.  In fact, Democrats offered an amendment to strike that language entirely.”  The results of that recorded vote, which show every Republican Member of the Committee voting to protect the provision, can be found here. 

• Acting Ranking Member Lynch highlighted that “Musk has been operating without any oversight whatsoever while posing a very real risk of violating security and privacy laws, accessing confidential information about his competitors, and using valuable federal databases to turbocharge his own AI system, which would mean more money and more power for Mr. Musk.” 

• Rep. Shontel Brown emphasized:  “DOGE was a reckless, unregulated, and unethical failure. ...  Musk and his cronies were handed the keys to our government’s data, let loose to sidestep security safeguards, strip away federal jobs, and exploit Americans’ personal information.”   

• Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost shared that “hundreds of constituents have also called into my office with the same fear that their private information is falling into the wrong hands.”  He reported hearing from “people that are angry at the Administration’s attempts to degrade vital services like Social Security, Medicaid, FEMA, and the VA.  And also, fear about what Elon Musk and folks at DOGE have done and could be doing with the data of American citizens and the American people—things like health records, banking information, and Social Security numbers.”

• Discussing how Elon Musk put Americans in danger through his exfiltration of Americans’ private data from federal government agencies, Mr. Schneier warned, “DOGE’s approach is making the risks of weaponization more real and the potential impacts more devastating.  Pooled sensitive data with weak cybersecurity protections creates significant risks to elected officials, national security, and the public as a whole.”

• Rep. Robert Garcia stressed that AI is not a substitute for trained experts who protect public health in America, and pointed out that RFK Jr. appears to have put Americans in danger by using AI to generate error-ridden portions of his Make America Healthy Again report.  Rep. Garcia identified “dozens of errors, including broken links, wrong issue numbers, and missing or incorrect authors.  Some studies were misstated to back up the report’s conclusions, or more damningly, did not exist at all.  At least seven of the cited sources were entirely fictitious.” 

• Rep. Suhas Subramanyam warned that in the federal government, “if you mess with an AI tool and it doesn’t get people’s checks on time for Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, then people are going to go without health care.  People are going to go without being able to pay their utility bills.  It’s going to have a terrible effect on the American people.” 

• Rep. Summer Lee cautioned that AI cannot be trusted to make unbiased decisions for American families, explaining:  “A tenant screening system, called Safe Rent, was accused of violating the Fair Housing Act because their AI algorithm disproportionately scored Black and Hispanic renters lower than white applicants. ...  Can you imagine if ChatGPT was deciding if you qualify for housing or not?  That’s not to say that all AI is bad, but it is dangerous to work quickly.  When you move fast and break things in the government, people get hurt.” 

• Rep. Jasmine Crockett called out Committee Republicans for failing to conduct any oversight of Elon Musk, emphasizing that it is “five months into the 119^th Congress and no one from the Administration of DOGE has appeared before this Committee to explain why they’re invading the privacy of Americans.”  She highlighted “the irony” that Republican Chairman James Comer said in 2023 that “‘we’ve witnessed Big Tech autocrats wield their unchecked power to promote their preferred political opinion’ And now he and Committee Republicans are here helping the world’s richest man do just that.” 

• Speaking about Americans’ stolen private data, Rep. Dave Min stated: “We don’t actually know at this point what Elon Musk and DOGE have been able to scrape.  They certainly have had access to a lot of our data illegally. ...  This Committee has not done any oversight on this question, but I think it’s an important one as we think about AI:  Is Grok, Elon Musk’s other AI models—Are they being trained on data that is only available because of this position at DOGE?” 

• Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton urged, “Our North Star must always be service to the American people, not tax breaks for billionaires or backroom deals to benefit the richest man in the world at public expense.”

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