On September 25, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced an agreement with former Trump ally and billionaire Elon Musk’s xAI to implement Grok, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, throughout the federal government.
The agreement, effective from September 25 until March 2027, offers a discount to federal agencies which seek to procure Grok; they may do so at $0.42 per organization, while Sam Altman’s OpenAI charges $1. xAI’s engineers will also be made available to help agencies integrate Grok. This agreement still comes as a surprise with Trump now having closer ties to Altman than Musk, as seen in a recent dinner in which Trump sat alongside Altman and other billionaires, with the exception of Musk.
The implementation of Grok is consistent with the second Trump administration’s OneGov initiative, which seeks to streamline how the federal government integrates nascent technology, such as AI.
The OneGov initiative aims to modernize government technology procurement, ensure standardized pricing and terms, and avoid duplicative deals across agencies. The effort follows calls in President Donald Trump’s so-called AI Action Plan to increase government use of AI and accelerate the technology’s development nationwide.
Bloomberg
Opponents of Trump and Musk have criticized the embrace of Grok, accusing it of demonstrating a right-wing bias, spreading misinformation, and engaging in hateful rhetoric. Indeed, Grok once referred to itself as “MechaHitler.” The AI has also erroneously stated that there is a “white genocide” in South Africa, Musk’s place of birth.
OneGov’s attempt to centralize agencies under the same technological umbrella and embrace of technological monopolies such as OpenAI and xAI represents a potential authoritarian merger between capital and state power.
