Musk’s AI chatbot Grok reportedly encouraged Trump to capture Venezuela’s president

In Brief

In December 2025, astir a period earlier the U.S. invaded Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, President Trump had a concealed gathering with Elon Musk, Time mag reports. This was astir 7 months aft Musk left his role successful the Trump medication astatine the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

During this meeting, Trump “spent hours” talking to Musk’s Grok chatbot, including asking however Venezuelans would respond to the seizure of their president, a root told Time. Just a fewer months earlier, successful September, Trump began ordering U.S. subject strikes against Venezuelan boats that Trump alleged were progressive successful cause trafficking.

People had seemingly been turning to Grok asking astir the vessel strikes and governmental clime successful Venezuela, as the Atlantic reported astatine the time. So Grok told Trump that Maduro was a “deeply unpopular dictator and that galore Venezuelans would apt observe his downfall,” Time reported.

When specified celebrations indeed happened after the U.S. invaded connected January 3, Trump seemingly “came distant reasoning Grok was ingenious,” that root told Time.

So possibly it should travel arsenic nary astonishment that successful June of this year, the Pentagon’s caput of AI said that the subject utilized Gov Grok to deploy and onslaught targets during the Iran War.

While Grok isn’t the lone AI exemplary serving the DoD (OpenAI besides has an agreement and Anthropic has been successful a back-and-forth over however its models tin beryllium utilized for subject quality and successful modern warfare), Grok whitethorn go an adjacent bigger favourite nether this administration. Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that Musk and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey person been tapped to co-lead a survey astir however precocious technology is, and tin be, utilized successful battlefields.

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