Several Amazon engineers who publicly opposed the company’s unchecked expansion of artificial intelligence data centers and called for stronger government regulation are now facing an internal investigation by the company.

Earlier this month, the Seattle City Council solicited public comments on a policy proposal: the city plans to impose a one-year pause on the construction of new large-scale data center projects to allow time to refine relevant regulatory rules. Five Amazon employees attended the hearing and gave testimony. On June 9, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed the moratorium on construction.Several employees criticized technology companies’ massive investments in the AI sector during the hearing, describing such expansion as a “race to build artificial intelligence infrastructure at all costs.”According to a complaint submitted on Friday by the employees’ legal representative to the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, after the hearing, three Amazon employees were each notified to attend online meetings initiated by the Human Resources department. HR informed them that the company had received related reports and is conducting an internal investigation into the public testimony given by several employees at the City Council.