Donald Trump queried Elon Musk's Grok chatbot before January raid on Nicolás Maduro

Oval Office consultation with Grok

In December 2025, United States President Donald Trump held a private meeting with Elon Musk in the Oval Office at the White House. The discussion occurred roughly seven months after Musk departed his formal administration role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). During the session, Trump spent several hours submitting queries to Grok, the conversational artificial intelligence system created by Musk's technology firm xAI. Trump questioned the software on multiple subjects concerning his presidency, political legacy, and international developments before specifically asking how the Venezuelan public would react if United States forces captured President Nicolás Maduro. In response, Grok assessed that Maduro was a deeply unpopular dictator and predicted that significant segments of the Venezuelan population would celebrate his removal from power.

Military operation in Caracas

The White House discussion took place against the backdrop of an ongoing naval campaign initiated in September 2025, when Trump ordered military strikes against Venezuelan vessels alleged to be involved in narcotics trafficking. On 3 January 2026, approximately one month after the meeting with Musk, United States armed forces executed a military operation in Caracas, capturing Maduro alongside his wife. Both individuals were transferred into United States custody, where Maduro faced federal indictments on corruption and narcotics trafficking charges. Following the operation, Trump announced that Washington would assume temporary administrative oversight of Venezuela during a transitional period. When demonstrations occurred across parts of Venezuela following the arrest, Trump expressed satisfaction with the apparent accuracy of Grok's earlier assessment.

Scope and limitations of national security artificial intelligence

Official accounts confirmed that Grok neither formulated military strategy nor recommended the operation against the Venezuelan leadership. Administration officials utilized the software as an informal tool for gauging foreign political sentiment, while final operational authorizations remained part of an established institutional decision-making process. The reliance on conversational software nevertheless drew attention to the broader integration of artificial intelligence in government policy. Analyses published by The Atlantic noted that users had previously queried Grok regarding the maritime boat strikes and regional political conditions, observing that commercial neural networks can generate flawed or decontextualized responses while presenting conclusions with unjustified confidence.

Pentagon integration and defense advisory appointments

The Oval Office session coincided with expanding adoption of xAI systems across the United States defense apparatus. In June 2026, the Pentagon's head of artificial intelligence stated that the Department of Defense deployed Gov Grok, a specialized government-configured model, to assist with troop deployments and strike target selection during the war against Iran. United States Department of Justice court filings cited by Agence France-Presse further revealed that Gov Grok was integrated into Project Maven, the military's algorithmic target-recognition framework. While the Pentagon maintains concurrent AI service agreements with OpenAI and has held discussions with Anthropic, Musk's defense advisory role expanded further when the Department of Defense named him and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey to co-lead a formal study on battlefield applications of advanced technologies.