Large models have become weapons of war: the U.S. military has characterized the xAI data center as a "munitions factory" to obstruct environmental lawsuits

According to Beating Monitoring, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion with the federal court in Mississippi, requesting to intervene and seek dismissal of the civil rights organization NAACP’s environmental lawsuit against the xAI data center. In testimony for the first time, the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense confirmed that the U.S. military has deployed a customized Grok Gov large model within classified military networks and that it has been used to plan actual military strike missions against Iran. The federal government argues that the computing power provided by the data center is equivalent to modern military-industrial manufacturing facilities, and cutting off the electricity supply would endanger national and military defense security.

The lawsuit stems from xAI’s unlawful operation of multiple portable natural gas turbines at the Colossus 2 data center for off-grid power generation, which caused severe pollution in nearby Black communities. To protect the power supply needed for Grok’s normal operation, the Department of Justice, in addition to supporting xAI’s position that the mobile gas turbines are temporary facilities exempt from permitting requirements, also put forward an entirely new legal defense logic: if the executive branch takes an opposing stance toward the lawsuit, private organizations or citizens would have no right to pursue environmental protection through the citizen-suit provisions of the Clean Air Act. Environmental and civil rights attorneys said the Department of Justice’s logic amounts to an overextension of executive authority, intended to use national security as a pretext to strip communities of the legal tools they need to fight corporate pollution.

The U.S. military’s deep reliance on commercial AI is the underlying reason the Department of Justice is stepping in forcefully. In 2025, the Pentagon signed a government-version Grok procurement contract worth up to $200 million with xAI. Cameron Stanley, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer of the Department of Defense, confirmed that the customized Grok Gov has been deployed within classified networks as part of the Maven intelligent system. During the U.S.-Iran conflict in February 2026, the Maven system reportedly deployed more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition at 2,000 targets within 96 hours. The military’s tactical reliance is prompting the Department of Justice to invoke national security provisions, granting exemptions for violations across xAI’s supply chain.