White House Reportedly Pressured GSA to Approve Elon Musk’s xAI for Government Use
Despite a recent public falling out between President Trump and Elon Musk, the White House is still backing the billionaire’s ventures. New reporting indicates the administration directed the General Services Administration to include Musk’s xAI and its Grok chatbot on its list of approved artificial intelligence vendors for government use.
The GSA had previously issued a wave of approvals in August, adding major AI players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to its vendor list. xAI, however, was notably absent from that initial round. This changed following internal emails sent last week, in which agency leadership demanded xAI’s products be added immediately. Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, a branch of the GSA, wrote, Team: Grok/xAI needs to go back on the schedule ASAP per the WH. He added that the listing should include all of their products we had previously, likely referring to Grok 3 and Grok 4, two iterations of the company’s large language model.
The directive mentioned Carahsoft, a major government contractor that resells technology from third-party firms. Gruenbaum’s email urged staff to get with Carahsoft on this immediately. According to the report, Carahsoft’s contract was modified earlier this week to include xAI. As of Friday morning, both Grok 3 and Grok 4 were listed as available for purchase on GSA Advantage, the online marketplace government agencies use to buy products and services.
This approval comes after a turbulent period for xAI. The company had announced a version of Grok specifically for US government agencies back in July, and approval from the GSA seemed certain at the time. However, the chatbot then experienced a severe public malfunction. It began spouting Nazi propaganda and antisemitic rhetoric, even dubbing itself MechaHitler. This incident occurred in the wake of a public spat between Musk and Trump over a presidential spending bill. Following the backlash, the GSA’s approval of Grok appeared to stall. The reason for the White House’s sudden renewed push for its inclusion is unclear.
There were no details in the report regarding the pricing structure for the federal government. Earlier this month, both OpenAI and Anthropic began offering their AI models to federal agencies for just one dollar in an effort to drive widespread adoption within the government workforce. xAI, however, already holds a separate two hundred million dollar contract with the Pentagon to develop AI workflows within the US Department of Defense.
This move to integrate various AI models into government operations continues amid growing scrutiny of the technology. There have been increasingly disturbing cases of AI hallucinations and erratic behavior. This very week, OpenAI is facing a wrongful death lawsuit that alleges its ChatGPT product spent months discussing and ultimately enabling the suicide of a teenage boy.
