Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence tool Grok was used in strikes against Iran, the United States government revealed in a legal briefing seen by AFP.

The June 15 brief defends the gas turbines used by a giant data centre belonging to the trillionaire’s company xAI, which are the target of an environmental lawsuit.

In the brief, the US Department of Justice argued that the lawsuit “threatens American national, economic, and energy security by seeking to shut off the power supply for artificial intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations”.

To support the argument, federal prosecutors presented testimony from Pentagon AI chief Cameron Stanley in which he states, under oath, that Grok is already in use within Project Maven, the US military’s AI-assisted targeting program that was initially powered by Anthropic’s Claude model.

The project’s Maven Smart Systems “enabled US forces to deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury,” Stanley’s statement said.