DOJ Legal Brief Confirms Pentagon Integrated Musk Grok AI Into Project Maven Targeting 2000 Strikes in 96 Hours During Iran Campaign

The June 15 DOJ brief, submitted to defend xAI's gas turbines against an NAACP Clean Air Act suit, included sworn testimony from Pentagon AI chief Cameron Stanley stating Grok Gov Model is integrated into Project Maven after DOD terminated its Anthropic contract on February 27 when Anthropic refused demands to remove safeguards barring Claude from fully autonomous lethal targeting and mass domestic surveillance 123. Stanley testified that Maven Smart Systems enabled U.S. forces to deploy over 2,000 munitions against 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury, attributing the efficiency gains to the Grok Gov Model 134. The DOJ argued the lawsuit threatens national security by seeking to cut power to xAI's data center, describing Grok as one of four proprietary AI models supporting mission-critical operations across classified networks 23. The Washington Times noted it remains unclear whether Grok was involved in a February 28 strike on a Minab elementary school that killed roughly 150 people, most of them children 1.