Musk's xAI was a late addition to the Pentagon's set of $200 million AI contracts, former Defense employee says

Source: NBC News

July 22, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT


The Pentagon last week announced multimillion-dollar contracts with four artificial intelligence companies intended to “address critical national security challenges,” including Anthropic, Google and OpenAI. But the fourth raised questions among artificial intelligence experts: Elon Musk’s xAI.

Now, a former Pentagon employee who worked on the early stages of the AI initiative told NBC News that including xAI was a late-in-the-game addition under the Trump administration.

The contracts had been in the works for months, with planning dating to the Biden administration.

“There had not been a single discussion with anyone from X or xAI, up until the time I left,” said Glenn Parham, who took a government buyout in March. “It kind of came out of nowhere.”

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/musk-xai-was-added-late-pentagon-grok-defense-department-rcna219488