Elon Musk gets $200 million Pentagon contract

Billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company has been awarded a $200 million contract by the US Department of Defense.

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot melts down – and then wins a military contract

— The Guardian (@theguardian.com) 2025-07-15T17:51:53.269Z

The contract comes as Musk served until recently as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he spearheaded major, controversial budget cuts across several government agencies under the Trump administration.

Elon Musk, already at the center of numerous controversies, is back in the news after the scandal surrounding Elon Musk’s own forced update of Grok, xAI’s chatbot, which began praising Hitler on X in response to user questions.

This new $200 million contract is likely to attract even more criticism, as Musk adds another of his companies to the list of companies, like SpaceX and Tesla, already benefiting massively from public funding.

In addition to xAI, the Department of Defense announced contracts for leading artificial intelligence companies, including Google, Anthropic and OpenAI, each of which received $200 million from the Trump administration, according to Fortune.

The details of these contracts have not been made public, and have simply been vaguely described as part of programs under “various mission areas” within the DoD.