The Trump administration admitted on Monday, for the first time, that Elon Musk’s xAI was used to support U.S. military operations, including strikes in Iran. In the same federal filing, the Department of Justice argued that xAI’s Mississippi data center should not be shut down because it is vital to national security.
The disclosure puts Grok AI at the center of two fights at once: a military program tied to Iran and an environmental lawsuit in Southaven, Mississippi. The Justice Department said the model had been used in U.S. military operations in Iran, and a Defense Department official said the Pentagon currently relies on derivatives of xAI’s commercial offerings known as the Grok Gov Model. That model is deployed in Maven Smart Systems to support vital national security missions, including targeting and intelligence.
The filing gives the clearest public glimpse yet of how the system is being used. The Defense Department official said the Grok Gov Model and Maven Smart Systems enabled U.S. forces to deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury. It also follows earlier disclosures that the military used Claude AI in March to identify potential targets in its war on Iran, before Trump ordered Claude replaced after a dispute with the Pentagon.
That national security argument collides with the complaint the Justice Department was trying to defeat. The NAACP sued in April, alleging that xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech have been operating dozens of unpermitted methane gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, in violation of the Clean Air Act and in a way that puts families at risk. Abre’ Conner put the complaint in stark terms: “A data center should not be a potential death sentence for a community’s health.”
The government’s filing does not explain exactly what Grok Gov Model did in the Iran strikes, and that missing detail matters. It leaves one uncomfortable question hanging over both cases: how a system defended as essential to national security in court can also be described as part of the machinery used to choose targets for bombing.
