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<\/p>\nA DOJ legal brief defending xAI’s Memphis data centre turbines has confirmed, under oath, that Grok replaced Anthropic’s Claude inside Project Maven and enabled over 2,000 strikes in 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury. (Image Courtesy: AFP)<\/p>\n
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Elon Musk\u2019s artificial intelligence tool Grok was used in strikes against Iran, the US government revealed in a legal brief seen Tuesday by AFP, after the Pentagon shifted away from Anthropic\u2019s Claude following a contract dispute and turned to xAI to sustain its AI-assisted targeting programme.<\/p>\n
The June 15 brief was filed by the US Department of Justice in defence of gas turbines powering an xAI data centre. The NAACP, a civil rights organisation defending the rights of Black Americans, had sued xAI, alleging it was operating dozens of turbines in majority Black neighbourhoods in Memphis without permits, in violation of the Clean Air Act. xAI says the turbines are temporary and mobile, and therefore outside regulatory scope.<\/p>\n
To argue that shutting down the turbines posed a national security risk, federal prosecutors submitted sworn testimony from Pentagon AI chief Cameron Stanley, who confirmed that Grok is already operational within Project Maven, the US military\u2019s AI-assisted targeting system.<\/p>\n
Stanley\u2019s statement said Maven Smart Systems \u201cenabled US forces to deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury.” He credited \u201cthe greatly increased operational efficiency made possible by the Grok Gov Model.”<\/p>\n
Project Maven was initially powered by Anthropic\u2019s Claude. In February, the government terminated its contracts with Anthropic after the company refused to allow its tools to be used for fully automated strikes or the mass surveillance of Americans.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon then approached Google, OpenAI, and xAI. In March, the government acknowledged Claude was still being used for Iran war operations during the transition period.<\/p>\n
At Google, more than 600 employees demanded the company refuse AI contracts for classified military operations. Broader concerns about AI autonomy in warfare have continued across the industry.<\/p>\n
Musk folded xAI into his space exploration company SpaceX in February. SpaceX carried out what was reported as the largest IPO in history on June 12.<\/p>\n
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About the Author Anoshito Banerjee is a digital journalist at CNN-News18, specialising in Indian foreign policy, global diplomacy, South and West Asian geopolitics, and strategic affairs. His reporting spans hard news…Read More<\/p>\n Location :<\/p>\n Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)<\/p>\n News<\/a> world<\/a> Elon Musk’s Grok Rained Bombs On Iran Even As Anthropic Pulled Out, Pentagon RevealsDisclaimer: Comments reflect users\u2019 views, not News18\u2019s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last Updated:June 17, 2026, 18:58 IST Pentagon AI chief confirmed under oath that Grok replaced Claude inside Project…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[42171,42172,6364,42168,42169,42174,41988,42173,2899,42170],"class_list":["post-77030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-xai","tag-ai-assisted-warfare","tag-anthropic-claude-dispute","tag-grok","tag-grok-ai-targeting-iran","tag-grok-ai-tool","tag-military-ai-autonomy","tag-project-maven-targeting","tag-us-iran-strikes","tag-xai","tag-xai-pentagon-contract"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Anoshito Banerjee<\/a><\/p>\n