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Pentagon to deploy Musk’s Grok on Defense networks days after deepfake porn backlash

• By John K. Waters
• 01/13/2026

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday that Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok will be deployed inside Pentagon networks alongside Google's generative AI tools, as the Trump administration pushes to feed more Defense Department data into emerging AI systems.

"Very soon we will have the world's leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department," Hegseth said in a speech at Musk's SpaceX facility in South Texas.

The decision comes days after Grok, which is integrated into Musk's social media platform X, drew global scrutiny for generating sexualized deepfake images of real people without their consent. The controversy intensified after users leveraged Grok's image editing capabilities to alter photos of women and girls, including by making them appear partially nude or in sexualized poses, prompting calls for tighter safeguards and accountability.

Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked Grok, while Britain's online safety regulator has opened an investigation. X has said it has limited some image generation and editing features to paying subscribers, a move critics argue does little to address the underlying potential for abuse.

Hegseth said Grok will go live inside the Defense Department later this month and that he will make "all appropriate data" from military IT systems available for what he called "AI exploitation." He also said data from intelligence databases would be fed into AI systems.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions about whether Grok's recent failures on X raised concerns about deploying the system inside Defense networks.

Hegseth's aggressive push contrasts with the Biden administration's approach, which encouraged federal agencies to adopt AI but emphasized guardrails to prevent misuse. In late 2024, the Biden administration enacted a framework directing national security agencies to expand their use of advanced AI while prohibiting certain uses, including applications that would violate constitutionally protected rights and any system that would automate the deployment of nuclear weapons. It was not immediately clear whether those prohibitions remain in effect.

In his remarks, Hegseth argued the Defense Department must accelerate technology adoption, saying innovation should "come from anywhere and evolve with speed and purpose." He highlighted what he called "combat-proven operational data from two decades of military and intelligence operations," adding: "AI is only as good as the data that it receives, and we're going to make sure that it's there."

He said he wanted Pentagon AI systems to be responsible, but he also criticized models "that won't allow you to fight wars," and said military AI should operate "without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications," adding that the Pentagon's "AI will not be woke."

Musk has promoted Grok as an alternative to what he calls "woke AI" from rivals such as Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT. Grok has previously sparked controversy beyond the deepfake scandal, including an incident in July in which it appeared to produce antisemitic content praising Adolf Hitler and sharing antisemitic posts.

The Pentagon's move risks intensifying a broader debate about how governments and companies should deploy powerful, dual-use AI systems that can streamline operations but also be repurposed for abuse. In Grok's case, critics argue that the same image manipulation tools now under investigation abroad demonstrate how quickly widely distributed AI can be used for harassment and sexual exploitation when safeguards fail.