Society
Trump reportedly asked Grok before capturing Maduro, according to Time
A source told Time magazine that Trump spent hours consulting Elon Musk's AI assistant a month before invading Venezuela. No one else has confirmed it.
The essentials
1 according to the source · 3 unconfirmed · 3 open questions
- UnconfirmedTrump met secretly with Elon Musk in December 2025 and spent hours asking Grok questions, according to a source cited by Time.1
- UnconfirmedAccording to Time, Trump asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the United States captured their president, Nicolás Maduro.1
- UnconfirmedGrok replied that Maduro was a very unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would probably celebrate his fall, according to Time.1
- According to the sourceThe Pentagon's head of AI said in June 2026 that the military used Grok Gov during the Iran war, according to TechCrunch.1
Why it matters
An AI assistant is not an intelligence service, and here it reportedly gave its view on a military operation to the person deciding on it. If confirmed, it suggests these tools already influence the mood of people who make decisions of that size. The report does not say Grok's answer decided anything, only that it impressed Trump.
The details
According to Time's source, the meeting took place in December 2025, about seven months after Musk left his post in the Trump administration1. Trump spent hours there talking with Grok1. When celebrations followed the January 3 invasion, he came away convinced that Grok was clever, again according to that source1.
TechCrunch, which picked up the report, notes that Grok's military use is already public. In June 2026, the Pentagon's head of AI said the military used Grok Gov in strikes on targets during the Iran war1. OpenAI also has an agreement with the Defense Department1. In addition, the Pentagon has asked Musk and Palmer Luckey, of Anduril, to co-lead a study on battlefield technology1.
What we don't know
- Whether the meeting happened as described: everything comes from a single anonymous Time source, and the material includes no response from the White House or from Musk.
- How much Grok's answer weighed in the decision to invade Venezuela, if it weighed at all.
- What else Trump asked Grok during those hours and what it answered.
Sources
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This story was written in Spanish by an artificial intelligence system from the sources listed above, and translated automatically. Before publication, a program checks that every figure and every name appears in the sources, and that the translation keeps the same facts, figures and sources. It has not been reviewed by a person. Spanish original · How we work (in Spanish)