Not even a “MechaHitler” meltdown was sufficient to scare off the Pentagon, apparently.
Simply days after xAI’s Grok chatbot generated a stream of antisemitic and homophobic responses, Elon Musk’s firm introduced that it secured a $200 million protection contract to develop and provide AI instruments to federal employees.
The Division of Protection’s Chief Digital and Synthetic Intelligence Workplace introduced the contract on Monday, saying it’s designed to assist the federal government faucet into the newest AI instruments for every part from battlefield operations to enterprise wants.
“The adoption of AI is remodeling the Division’s means to help our warfighters and keep strategic benefit over our adversaries,” CDAO Chief Digital and AI Officer Dr. Doug Matty mentioned in an announcement. “Leveraging commercially accessible options into an built-in capabilities method will speed up the usage of superior AI as a part of our joint mission important duties in our warfighting area in addition to intelligence, enterprise, and enterprise data programs.”
In keeping with Lucas Hansen, the co-founder of the AI safety and schooling nonprofit CivAI, the take care of xAI is much less about instant use and extra about preserving tempo with world rivals.
“The federal government desires to help the frontier labs and growth of AI in order that the U.S. doesn’t fall behind China,” Hansen advised Decrypt. “Then there’s the query of how these funds are distributed and the way that help is offered. I believe this would possibly simply be the particular approach they’ve chosen to help the businesses, slightly than an expectation of inner deployment instantly.”
However Hansen warned that Grok’s underlying conduct raises deeper issues about the way it would possibly act in high-stakes authorities settings.
“Even when Grok is deployed by the federal government utilizing the identical model that beforehand confirmed a willingness to generate dangerous responses, then—even when these use circumstances aren’t explicitly antisemitic or hateful—it’s essentially extra more likely to behave unethically and autonomously,” he mentioned.
Grok has been the middle of a number of public meltdowns. In Might, stories surfaced that Grok inserted “white genocide” claims into unrelated prompts. xAI blamed the problem on a rogue worker. Final week, simply earlier than the Grok 4 launch, the chatbot once more drew criticism for a wave of racist and homophobic outputs, resulting in the resignation of X CEO Linda Yaccarino.
Whereas issues linger over how Grok would possibly behave in delicate environments, Hansen mentioned the model the Pentagon makes use of just isn’t more likely to be the identical because the one which X customers have had entry to since November 2023.
The $200 million award is the newest deal between the USA army and high AI builders. Different AI builders receiving $200 million contracts embrace Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. In November, Meta mentioned it will make its open-source Llama AI mannequin accessible to U.S. protection companies and contractors. In June, ChatGPT developer OpenAI was awarded its personal $200 million contract with the Division of Protection, launching its AI suite, OpenAI for Authorities.
If the Pentagon deployed Grok over a rival, Hansen emphasised it will be as a result of Grok is “open-weight,” that means it may be run on personal {hardware} and never require an API connection again to xAI.
Asserting Grok for Authorities – a collection of merchandise that make our frontier fashions accessible to United States Authorities prospects
We’re particularly enthusiastic about two new partnerships for our US Authorities companions
1) a brand new contract from the US Division of Protection
2) our…— xAI (@xai) July 14, 2025
Regardless of Grok’s current controversies, on the coronary heart of the deal, Hansen mentioned, could also be a easy strategic calculation: Keep near the important thing gamers shaping the way forward for AI.
“I believe most of that is the federal government eager to have a relationship with all of the frontier labs, they usually hit the 4 labs that truly matter,” he mentioned.
In a separate assertion asserting the take care of the Pentagon, xAI mentioned its mission is to create AI instruments to “help humanity in our quest for understanding and data.” To do that, xAI introduced the launch of Grok for Authorities, a collection of AI instruments together with the lately launched Grok 4 and Deep Search.
“America is the world chief in AI, and that is in no small half resulting from a convention of innovation and powerful investments in engineering and science,” xAI wrote. “We’re excited to contribute again to the nation that made xAI uniquely doable right here.”
xAI didn’t reply to requests for feedback from Decrypt.
