- Musk, Luckey will lead Pentagon study on advanced military technologies.
Weeks before US forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, President Donald Trump reportedly spent hours questioning Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot about Venezuela, including how ordinary citizens might respond if Maduro were taken into custody. The interaction reportedly took place during a private meeting with Musk at the White House in December 2025, according to a US official cited by TIME. Musk, who had previously served in the Trump administration, had returned to the White House for the meeting.
Trump Questioned Grok
Among the questions Trump reportedly put to Grok was how Venezuelans would react if the United States captured Maduro.
According to TIME’s account, the chatbot characterised Maduro as a repressive and “deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall”.
The exchange took place against the backdrop of escalating US military action involving Venezuela. At the time, Trump’s administration had already ordered strikes on Venezuelan boats that it alleged were connected to drug trafficking.
The Atlantic had also reported that people were turning to Grok for answers about the US strikes and the political situation unfolding in Venezuela.
Maduro Captured In January
The US operation targeting Maduro was conducted on January 3. Celebrations were subsequently reported in Venezuela, broadly corresponding with the reaction Grok had predicted in its response to Trump’s question.
The US official who spoke to TIME said Trump “came away thinking Grok was ingenious.”
The reported episode offers a glimpse into how AI tools were being used at the highest levels of the US government while tensions surrounding Venezuela were escalating.
AI Enters Military Operations
The reported conversation involving Trump and Grok also comes amid a broader expansion in the US government’s use of artificial intelligence for military and defence purposes.
TIME cited a US official as saying that the American military had used Gov Grok in connection with the deployment and targeting of strikes during the Iran war. The Pentagon’s head of AI also publicly discussed the use of the technology in June.
Grok is among several AI systems being incorporated into US defence operations. OpenAI has an agreement with the Pentagon, while Anthropic has faced disagreements with the US government over restrictions on how its models can be used for military intelligence and modern warfare.
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Musk, Luckey To Lead Study
The Pentagon has also announced a new technology-focused initiative involving Musk and Palmer Luckey, the entrepreneur behind defence technology company Anduril.
Earlier this week, the department said the two would co-lead a study examining how advanced technologies are currently being used on battlefields and how they could be deployed in future combat environments.
The initiative comes as Washington continues to expand its focus on artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies for military planning and battlefield operations.
The reported Trump-Grok exchange, meanwhile, highlights the increasingly direct role AI systems can play in political and military decision-making, particularly as the US government expands its use of such tools.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: abplive.com
