Warren is pushing the Pentagon on the decision to give xAI access to the network

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday expressing concern over the Pentagon’s decision to give Elon Musk’s company xAI access to networks.

“Grok, a controversial AI model developed by xAI, has provided disturbing content to users, including providing users with ‘instructions on how to commit murder and crime,’ creating objectionable content, and creating child abuse content,” the letter read.

Warren said Grok’s “lack of adequate security” could “pose a significant threat to the security of the US military and cyber security.” He asked Hegseth to explain how the Defense Department plans to “reduce threats to national security.”

Warren isn’t the first to express alarm at Grok, xAI’s chatbot, getting into the system. Last month, a cooperation of non-profit organizations encouraged government to immediately stop the importation of Grok in federal agenciesincluding the DoD, after X users repeatedly launched a chatbot to edit real-life images of women, and sometimes children, sex pictures without their consent. On the same day Warren sent him a letter, a class action lawsuit was filed against xAI alleging that Grok had created sexual content from real photos of the accusers as minors.

The letter comes after the Pentagon’s decision write Anthropic risk of supply chain after the AI ​​company refused to give the military access to its AI systems. Anthropic was, until recently, the only AI company with ready-made systems. In the middle of the debate, the DoD signed a document partnership with OpenAI and xAI to use the two companies’ AI systems on select networks, according to Axios.

A Pentagon official confirmed that the Grok has been boarded for use in designated areas, but is not in use.

“It is not clear what certifications xAI has provided or the documents it has provided to the Department of Defense about Grok’s security measures, data handling practices, or security controls, and whether the DoD reviewed those certifications before allowing Grok to enter the classified system,” Warren writes.

Warren asked for a copy of the agreement he says was reached between the DoD and xAI on the use of Grok in selected operations and an explanation of how the department plans to ensure that Grok is not affected by cyberattacks and “will not release military or confidential information.”

(Last week, a former employee of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency said he stole Americans’ personal information from the Social Security Administration and keeping it under thumb – the latest case DOGE-related data leaks.)

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the department “expects to deploy Grok to its AI platform GenAI.mil soon.”

GenAI.mil is a secure military AI support group that provides DoD personnel with access to key languages ​​(LLMs) and other AI tools within a government-approved cloud environment. It is designed to help with unclassified tasks such as research, document writing, and data analysis.