A U.S. court filing has revealed that Grok, the artificial intelligence system developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, was used by the U.S. Defense Department during military operations against Iran. The disclosure came on Wednesday and showed how deeply advanced AI tools are being integrated into American security work.
According to Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon’s head of digital and artificial intelligence, Grok played a central role in operational support. He said the system helped launch more than 2,000 munitions at roughly 2,000 targets in just 96 hours, and called its continued use “a matter of utmost importance to U.S. national security.”
The filing was submitted in a lawsuit against xAI that is unrelated to the Iran war, alleging the company’s data centers pollute residential areas. Still, the Pentagon’s remarks offered a rare glimpse into how AI is being used in U.S. defense systems. Officials said Grok is one of only four AI models currently able to support national security missions, and one of only three that can operate in highly classified environments.
The disclosure comes amid intense scrutiny of AI in combat. U.S. researchers are examining, among other incidents, an attack on a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, where at least 175 people, most of them children, were killed. Human rights groups and military analysts say it was one of the worst civilian harm incidents since the campaign against Iran began. Pentagon officials stress that AI systems do not make strike decisions on their own, but assist humans by collecting, analyzing and presenting information. The debate in Washington is now growing, with Democrats backing bills that would keep final lethal decisions in human hands and bar AI from areas such as nuclear weapons and autonomous arms.
