House Oversight Chairman Demands Delaware's Records on Plan for AI-Run Companies, Including 'Internal AI Chat Logs'

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has asked Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer for records on the state's plan to create a new kind of business entity run day to day by an artificial intelligence agent, including "internal AI chat logs" his administration holds about the proposal. The four-page letter, dated Oct. 26, sets a Nov. 9 deadline.

The proposed entity, called an Artificial Intelligence Company, or AIC, would let an AI agent operate a business while giving the person or company that funds it protection from liability for harms the AI causes, "except where [the capitalizer] fails to capitalize the company or uses it to commit fraud or a willful violation of law," the letter says, quoting Delaware's secretary of state.

"We are concerned that Delaware's AIC proposal could be used to protect powerful AI companies and their investors from responsibility for reckless harmful actions, while also protecting non-transparent forces seeking anticompetitive regulatory capture behind state AI initiatives," Comer wrote.

What Delaware's AI-Run Companies Plan Would Do

According to the letter, Meyer signed House Joint Resolution 7 on July 23, 2025, directing the state's Artificial Intelligence Commission to work with Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez on "a regulatory sandbox framework" for testing agentic AI. The commission's December 2025 report said a subcommittee was "actively working towards a draft regulatory framework" for AI in corporate governance. Comer wrote that the two-page report "did not mention any commission efforts to assess the potential safety, harms, risks, or outside consultations with independent experts."

A draft 36-page legislative proposal was released in late June 2026 and is reportedly expected to go to the General Assembly next year, the letter says, citing Spotlight Delaware. It identifies the principal drafter as John Mark Zeberkiewicz, a lawyer at the Delaware firm Richards, Layton & Finger whose firm biography says he has represented Facebook, now Meta. The letter quotes him as saying, "Anything that a company can do, the AIC can do as a company."

The letter also quotes Patibanda-Sanchez on the revenue side: "Should a new entity form be created out of it, that's a really huge benefit to our state's revenues." It says her office declined in September to answer a news outlet's questions about its working relationship with an AI company contributing to the proposal.

Four Categories of Records

Comer asked for records from Jan. 1, 2025, to the present in four categories: all documents and communications about developing the AIC policy, including those with outside parties and internal AI chat logs; all ethics, consulting and other agreements signed by outside contributors; all records about possible safety concerns, harms and efforts to limit AI liability; and all drafts, comments and inputs on AIC proposals.

The committee said the information would help inform "possible federal legislative efforts including proposals to appropriately limit state AI regulatory initiatives." The letter cites House Rule X, which the committee says gives it authority to investigate "any matter" at "any time" and to study relationships between the federal government and the states. Ranking Member Robert Garcia, D-Calif., was copied.

Meyer's deputy press secretary told WHYY News the governor's office is reviewing the letter. Richards, Layton & Finger told WHYY that practicing lawyers have always helped develop Delaware's corporate statutes and that "the General Assembly makes decisions with the benefit of that input."

Delaware is where most large U.S. public companies are incorporated, so changes to its business-entity laws are closely followed nationwide. The AIC proposal has not been filed as a bill.

Sources: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, letter from Chairman James Comer to Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer (Oct. 26, 2026): https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Letter-to-Delaware-re-AIC_10.26.26.pdf ; committee press release: https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-investigates-potential-for-harm-lack-of-transparency-in-delaware-initiative-to-create-new-artificial-intelligence-companies/ ; WHYY News (Oct. 28, 2026): https://whyy.org/articles/delaware-ai-companies-us-house-comer-oversight/ ; Cover photo: Legislative Hall, Dover, Delaware (Adavyd, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)