Although US President Trump and Elon Musk recently had friction over budget issues, news shows that the White House still chose to support xAI, the AI company led by Elon Musk. According to Wired websiteObtaining internal documentsAfter the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) approved the generative AI models of OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic for inclusion in the federal government procurement list in August, the White House reportedly issued a direct order requiring xAI's Grok chatbot to be re-listed for government procurement.
The document shows that Josh Gruenbaum, director of the Federal Acquisition Service at the U.S. General Services Administration, instructed his team in an internal email that the White House requires xAI's Grok to be returned to the approved list as soon as possible and that all previously listed products should be included. The "3 & 4" mentioned in the email are speculated to refer to the Grok 3 and Grok 4 versions.
Meanwhile, Carahsoft, a contractor that has long served as a bridge between the government and technology vendors, was also asked to quickly comply. Sources indicate that Carahsoft's contract was amended last week to officially incorporate xAI's services. As of Friday morning, Grok 3 and Grok 4 were indeed available on the General Services Administration's platform for government agencies to purchase products and services.
It's worth noting that back in July, xAI announced it would release a version of Grok specifically for US government agencies. At the time, it seemed almost certain that General Services Administration certification was only a matter of time. However, Grok subsequently went haywire during testing, making Nazi and anti-Semitic remarks, even calling itself "MechaHitler," sparking controversy and stalling its progress toward approval.
Observers believe that the White House's direct order to intervene shows that the US government still hopes to retain more supplier options as it actively promotes the introduction of AI tools into administrative and defense systems, especially considering that xAI currently holds a $2 million contract with the US Department of Defense to develop AI workflows.
In contrast, OpenAI and Anthropic chose to use a “strategic low price” approach.Promote, and recently even offered its large-scale language model to federal agencies for a nominal price of $1, thereby rapidly expanding its use. As for whether xAI will follow suit with exclusive government discounts, there is currently no further information.
On the other hand, generative AI tools have recently been questioned due to frequent incidents of hallucinations and erroneous output. Earlier this week, OpenAI was even faced with a lawsuit involving a minor's suicide, alleging that ChatGPT had engaged in prolonged discussions with the teenager, ultimately leading to the tragedy. This has once again drawn attention to the potential safety and ethical risks of AI.
Overall, the White House's initiative to add Grok back to the federal government procurement list not only shows that the policy level still hopes to maintain supplier diversity in key AI technologies, but also means that Elon Musk still occupies an important position in the US government's technology strategy.
