In December 2025, about a month before the United States invaded Venezuela and detained President Nicolas Maduro, Time magazine reported that President Trump held a secret meeting with Elon Musk. This comes about seven months after Musk left his role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Trump administration.
During the meeting, Trump spoke to Musk’s Grok chatbot for “hours and hours,” including asking him questions about how Venezuelans would react to the president’s detention, a person familiar with the matter told Time. Just a few months ago, in September, President Trump began ordering U.S. military strikes against Venezuelan fishing vessels that he claimed were involved in drug trafficking.
As The Atlantic reported at the time, people apparently asked Mr. Grok about the boat strike and the political situation in Venezuela. There, Groc told Trump that Maduro was “a very unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would be happy to see him removed,” Time reported.
When such a celebration did take place after the U.S. invasion on Jan. 3, Trump apparently “went home thinking Grok was original,” the source told Time.
So it may not be surprising that in June, the Pentagon’s AI chief said that the military used Governor Grok to deploy and attack targets during the Iran war.
While Grok isn’t the only AI model serving the Department of Defense (OpenAI also has an agreement, and Anthropic is in a tailspin on how its models can be used for military intelligence and modern warfare), Grok could become an even bigger favorite under this administration. Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that Musk and Anduril’s Palmer Lackey had been selected to co-lead research into how advanced technology is and could be used on the battlefield.
