Pentagon strikes deal to deploy Elon Musk’s Grok AI in classified systems as clash with Anthropic over safety limits jeopardizes Claude’s future role.

Elon Musk’s xAI has reportedly reached an agreement with the Pentagon to let its Grok model be used inside classified military systems, according to Axios and subsequent reports citing a Defense official and other sources. The deal would move Grok beyond the unclassified environments where it was already available and place it alongside the most sensitive defense workflows used for intelligence analysis, weapons development, and combat-related missions. The key context is a growing rift between the Pentagon and Anthropic, whose Claude model had been the sole AI system in some of the military’s most sensitive operations. According to Axios, Anthropic has resisted the Pentagon’s demand that AI vendors permit use for “all lawful purposes,” including broad surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons, while xAI accepted that condition. That dispute matters because it could force the Defense Department to diversify away from Claude and accelerate deals with other major AI vendors such as Google and OpenAI, both of which are also in talks to enter classified environments.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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