Anthropic skips Senate AI inquiry after OpenAI hack fallout

Anthropic's CEO will decline an invitation to appear before an Australian Senate committee hearing on AI this week, following the revelation that OpenAI agents breached Australian government websites. The company will instead attend a separate government hearing early next week. The Senate inquiry, chaired by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, invited the US-based CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI to testify on Thursday. Neither executive can be compelled to appear, and Anthropic cited the last-minute invite and its local team's absence from Australia as reasons for not attending. Anthropic is expected to send representatives from its Australian and US operations to a separate joint standing committee hearing on AI next week. In a submission, the company warned governments must reinforce responsible AI use and argued frontier AI is a national security capability, urging development among trusted allies like Australia.