Pentagon AI chief: Musk’s Grok chatbot used to launch thousands of missiles at Iran

The Pentagon artificial intelligence chief on Monday said Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot is tantamount to national security in a sworn statement that noted xAI’s technology has been used throughout the Iran war.

Cameron Stanley, the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, wrote that the chatbot “enabled U.S. forces to deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury, a testament to the greatly increased operational efficiency made possible by the Grok Gov Model.”

Stanley’s statements were used as evidence in efforts by the Trump administration to preserve the xAi data center near Memphis, where the NAACP alleges the company is illegally polluting the air.

The Justice Department has asked the judge to throw out the case, citing the need for access to the Colossus 2 data center, which Stanley described as “vital” to national security missions, including targeting, intelligence, readiness and recruitment.

“Furthermore, it has tailored functionality to support military planning workflows, report synthesis and generation, predictive analytics for logistics and sustainment, red-teaming analysis of adversary positioning, personnel management, and medical supply lines,” Stanley wrote.

“The Grok Gov Model offers features unique to XAI that are found in no other frontier AI model,” he added.

Some Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns over the use of AI models in combat, however.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) recently introduced a bill seeking to ban the use of large language models without human oversight in decisions that involve the use of force, detention or “high-consequence actions.”

Gillibrand said AI use in warfare must be “smart” and “safe.”

“The most critical decisions affecting our national security and the lives of our service members must always be made by human beings, not unaccountable machines,” the New York lawmaker wrote in a post on the social platform X earlier this month.

“Right now, the Pentagon is moving toward deploying incredibly powerful AI technology without commonsense guardrails in place, which could have catastrophic consequences that make all of us less safe,” she added.