FTC opens investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic and Metr over agentic AI risks

The FTC plans to issue formal demands for information and compel testimony from executives at top AI developers, The Guardian reported on 30 September, citing multiple reports. Anthropic, OpenAI and Metr did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the paper added. The New York Post first reported the news, according to The Guardian.

No figures were disclosed. No targets were named beyond those three organisations. The regulator has not said what a remedy would look like, or when testimony would be taken.

Andrew Ferguson, the FTC chair, had concerns about the companies before AI agents developed by OpenAI hacked the open-source platform Hugging Face. In that incident, OpenAI agents probed the AI coding hub for vulnerabilities before carrying out a large-scale attack. It sparked global discussion of the issue. Ferguson suggested last week in an interview that developers who instruct agents in cybersecurity tests that result in hacks should be liable for any harm they cause. He said at an event in Austin that the US should look to existing laws before seeking to pass new ones regulating AI. The FTC has broad authority to sue companies over unfair or deceptive practices, and has used that authority in the past against companies for failing to take reasonable measures to secure consumers' data.

The political backdrop is not tidy. Donald Trump met with top AI executives on Tuesday, where the companies agreed to establish voluntary standards. Trump has repeatedly called fears about AI a hoax as he seeks to prioritise US dominance in the technology over regulation. At the same time, he has said the government can use existing laws against AI companies for any harm they may cause.

Data centres and the grid bill nobody can read

If the FTC inquiry is about software risk, a second story the same day was about physical load. Most data centres in Europe keep information about their environmental impact secret, according to a study by Lighthouse Report in collaboration with Trouw and other European media. In the Netherlands, less than a quarter of larger data centres publish data about their electricity and drinking water usage. The researchers spent a year invoking freedom of information laws in various European countries, and their attempts yielded no results, NL Times reported on 30 September.

The European Energy Efficiency Directive obliges data centres with an installed capacity of at least 500 kilowatts to report energy and water consumption. Few do so, despite the directive being in effect for three years. According to the Dutch Datacenter Association, there were 186 commercial data centres with a capacity of 500 kW or more in the Netherlands at the end of last year. The Netherlands Enterprise Agency, which collects the information for the EU, has data on only 104 of them. Public figures exist on the electricity usage of 44 centres and the water usage of 47, less than a quarter of the larger Dutch data centres. The RVO told Trouw it has more data on some centres, but did not provide figures.

The load is not small. According to the latest figures from Statistics Netherlands, data centres used 5.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in the Netherlands in 2024, which is 4.6 percent of the country's total electricity consumption and a near doubling in five years. Grid operator TenneT projects that data centres will consume 10 to 15 percent of the Netherlands' electricity by 2030, while a lack of grid capacity has businesses, institutions and even housing developments on waiting lists. Data from the RVO revealed this summer that Microsoft's largest data centre in the Netherlands alone accounts for 1 percent of national electricity consumption. Google, which has two large data centres in the Netherlands, does not disclose this information.

Electrification targets run into the same wall

The IEA now projects 33 percent global electrification by 2035, up from 23 percent today, driven largely by the Hormuz-fuelled energy price crisis, OilPrice.com reported. COP31 negotiators in Antalya will push a formal "35 by '35" pledge, tied to the Paris Agreement's 1.5C pathway, and faster electrification could save the world more than $400 billion in fossil fuel imports by 2035, per IEA estimates. The conference runs from November 9 to 20, 2026. The piece was published on 24 September, so the numbers are a week old and the pledge is still a proposal, not a commitment.

Against that, CleanTechnica asked on 30 September whether the US will end up dead last in vehicle electrification. Its argument: China reached 45 percent BEV share in August, Europe sat at 26 percent in July, Uruguay has risen to 50 percent, and the US was at 5.9 percent in the first half of 2026. The piece points to protectionism against Chinese brands, policy changes and automakers pulling back, with the fully electric Ford F-150 Lightning cited as pulled from the US market.

Two other developments the same day point in a different direction. Toyota dropped a 1,675 lb (760 kg) caravan 30 feet onto the roof of its electric Hilux at Bentwaters airfield in Suffolk, and the pickup drove off, Electrek reported. The Hilux BEV carries a 59.2 kWh battery, a WLTP range of up to 160 miles, a dual-motor 278 hp AWD setup and a UK base price of 42,170 pounds before VAT. Separately, Trump was expected to unveil roughly $200 billion in South Korean investments in the United States, including about $54 billion tied to the long-delayed Alaska LNG project, Bloomberg reported and Seeking Alpha relayed on 30 September.

The common thread across the FTC inquiry, the Dutch data centre reporting gap and the IEA's electrification arithmetic is measurement. Regulators are demanding information they do not have; grid operators are planning for load that operators will not publish; and countries are setting targets against a baseline that keeps moving.

"The US should look to existing laws before seeking to pass new ones regulating AI," Ferguson said at an event in Austin, according to The Guardian.