An Energy Department-run national lab is piloting xAI’s Grok

The Department of Energy is piloting Grok, the generative AI tool from Elon Musk’s xAI, within its Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, according to the agency’s AI use case inventory. The pilot began at the end of June 2025 and has been used to find general answers to questions, summarize information and create documents. 

The Grok pilot comes at a time when the Energy Department is pursuing ambitious AI goals as part of its role in leading the Trump administration’s Genesis Mission. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly characterized the AI effort as “the Manhattan Project of our time.” 

Grok has been a controversial addition to the federal government’s workflows since the start, following its posting of racist and antisemitic comments last July. A group of more than 30 advocacy organizations called on the Office of Management and Budget to prohibit the use of Grok across the federal government just a month after xAI launched “Grok for Government” last summer. 

Grok has continued to dominate headlines in the months since. The chatbot has generated biased or misleading claims, garnering the attention of foreign governments and domestic watchdogs. 

“If agencies are using Grok for ‘research’ or ‘summarizing’ documents they run the risk of Grok’s historic biases coming into play within the text they are generating,” J.B. Branch, big tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, said in an email. “This can amplify harms across the federal government and the American people are the ones who feel the brunt of that impact.” 

Advocates have also questioned existing governance controls in the wake of a lawsuit filed in January with 100-plus individuals alleging xAI executives failed to implement industry standard safeguards resulting in explicit, nonconsensual sexual images generated from their photos. California’s attorney general, as well as other states, began investigating xAI over the explicit content. Government officials abroad are taking similar steps to look into the reports. 

Still, use of the tool has expanded across agencies — and the Energy Department isn’t the only one considering adoption. The Department of Human and Health Services provided two xAI-fueled use cases in its consolidated inventory posted last week, although the vendor is not mentioned in the non-consolidated version of the inventory.  

HHS identified xAI as one of the vendors supporting the generation of first drafts of documents and other communication materials, as well as scheduling and managing social media posts. HHS, DOE and xAI did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. 

Branch characterized the use cases as “alarming.” 

“Managing social media posts or forms of communication with an LLM that has outputs tied to conspiracy theories or white supremacist ideology is flirting with disaster,” Branch said in an email to FedScoop. “It would be wise to pause and reassess Grok’s suitability before moving forward and potentially finding themselves in a controversy around yet another Grok meltdown.”

The 30-plus member coalition, which includes Public Citizen, sent a third letter to OMB on Monday, urging the suspension and removal of Grok from federal agencies. 

“Continuing to deploy Grok in the federal government is wholly inconsistent with OMB’s own safety mandates, the Administration’s AI Action Plan, and the core commitments of Executive Order 14319,” the letter stated, citing use of the technology across agencies and the Pentagon. 

While it is unclear to what degree HHS has deployed Grok, the Energy Department said its pre-deployment testing and AI impact assessment are in-progress, according to the inventory. 

Grok AI models are fairly accessible for federal agencies at just 42 cents per organization as part of a OneGov agreement that runs until next March. 

“Widespread access to advanced AI models is essential to building the efficient, accountable government that taxpayers deserve — and to fulfilling President Trump’s promise that America will win the global AI race,” Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum said in the September 2025 announcement. “We value xAI for partnering with GSA — and dedicating engineers — to accelerate the adoption of Grok to transform government operations.”