The United States government revealed on Tuesday that the military used Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok, to conduct air strikes against Iran.
A Department of Justice legal brief defended a giant xAI data centre currently facing an environmental lawsuit, arguing that shutting down its power supply would threaten American national security and disrupt critical military operations.
Federal prosecutors backed their argument with sworn testimony from Pentagon AI chief Cameron Stanley, who confirmed that the military integrates the “Grok Gov Model” into Project Maven—the US military’s AI-assisted targeting system.
Stanley revealed that Project Maven enabled U.S. forces to deploy more than 2,000 munitions against 2,000 distinct targets within a 96-hour window during Operation Epic Fury.
The legal battle stems from an NAACP lawsuit accusing xAI of violating the Clean Air Act by operating dozens of unpermitted, polluting gas turbines in majority-Black neighbourhoods.

While xAI claims the temporary, mobile turbines do not require standard permits, the Pentagon heavily relies on the data centre’s computing power after cancelling its contracts with Anthropic in February over the tech firm’s refusal to support fully automated strikes.
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