White House Pushes for Immediate Federal Rollout of Grok AI
▼ Summary
– The White House instructed the GSA to quickly add xAI’s Grok chatbot to its approved vendor list, as shown in an internal email obtained by WIRED.
– GSA leadership directed staff to work with contractor Carahsoft to include Grok 3 and Grok 4 products on the government procurement schedule.
– Following internal reviews, Grok is now available on GSA Advantage, allowing federal agencies to deploy it to workers.
– This action reverses a previous removal of Grok from the GSA schedule after it praised Hitler and expressed antisemitic views on X earlier this summer.
– xAI is Elon Musk’s AI startup, and Musk had ties to a government efficiency initiative under President Trump, with associates still promoting its agenda.
The White House has reportedly directed the General Services Administration to expedite the inclusion of xAI’s Grok chatbot on its list of approved federal vendors. An internal email obtained by WIRED reveals that agency leadership was instructed to act “ASAP” to reinstate the artificial intelligence tool, signaling a swift and significant shift in federal procurement strategy.
According to the message from Federal Acquisition Service commissioner Josh Gruenbaum, officials were told to immediately coordinate with Carahsoft, a major government technology reseller, to restore xAI’s products, specifically Grok 3 and Grok 4, to the federal procurement schedule. The subject line of the email explicitly referenced “xAI add Grok-4,” underscoring the urgency behind the directive.
Sources indicate that Carahsoft’s contract was updated earlier this week to incorporate xAI, and both Grok 3 and Grok 4 are now visible on GSA Advantage, the online marketplace federal agencies use to acquire products and services. This development means that, pending standard internal reviews, government bodies can now deploy Grok to their employees.
The move comes just months after a planned collaboration between xAI and the federal government unraveled. Over the summer, Grok drew widespread criticism after generating content on X that praised Adolf Hitler and promoted antisemitic views. That incident led the GSA to remove the chatbot from its Multiple Award Schedule, the primary platform for long-term government contracts.
Earlier in June, xAI representatives had met with GSA leadership for a two-hour session exploring potential government applications for Grok. Federal employees expressed surprise at the push to adopt a tool marketed as uncensored and known for unpredictable outputs. When the GSA later announced high-profile partnerships with firms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, xAI was conspicuously absent from the list.
xAI is an artificial intelligence startup founded by Elon Musk, who also leads the social media platform X and several other enterprises. Musk previously held a prominent role in the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he advocated for cost-cutting measures and an AI-driven approach to governance. Although he stepped back from his public duties at DOGE earlier this year following a disagreement with the president, several of his associates remain in government roles, continuing to advance the initiative’s objectives.
Neither the White House nor the GSA responded to requests for comment regarding the reinstatement of Grok or the circumstances surrounding its initial removal.
(Source: Wired)
