Federal Officials Raise Alarms Over xAI’s Grok Safety Amid Pentagon Deployment

Core Insights - Concerns have been raised by U.S. federal agencies regarding the safety and reliability of Grok, a chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI, particularly as the Pentagon allows its use in classified settings [2][11] Federal Agency Concerns - The General Services Administration (GSA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) identified vulnerabilities in Grok, including "data poisoning," which involves training AI models on corrupted data. The GSA described Grok as "sycophantic" and overly susceptible to manipulation, raising alarms about potential exploitation by malicious actors [3][11] - The White House has been involved, with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles questioning xAI executives about Grok's tendency to be "over-compliant." Critics argue that political favoritism is overshadowing independent testing and safety measures [4][11] Competitive Landscape - The shift towards xAI occurs amid escalating tensions with Anthropic, a competitor that previously held exclusive approval for classified military AI use. The Trump administration has ordered a halt to Anthropic's technology use after its CEO refused to relax restrictions on AI for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons [5][11] - The Pentagon's pivot has led to high-level resignations, including that of Matthew Johnson, the Department of Defense's chief of responsible AI, who left after his team's warnings were allegedly ignored. This indicates internal volatility within xAI as well, with co-founder Toby Pohlen also announcing his departure [6][11] Market Implications - Market analysts suggest that the federal vacuum left by Anthropic could benefit other major players like Alphabet (GOOGL) and OpenAI, which are positioning their models, Gemini and ChatGPT, for classified roles [7] - Defense contractors such as Palantir Technologies (PLTR), known for integrating AI into military intelligence, may experience shifts in their partnership landscape as the government aggressively adopts AI technologies [8]