WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump spent hours questioning Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot during a secret Oval Office meeting in December 2025, asking the artificial intelligence tool how Venezuelans would react if the United States captured then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, according to a Time magazine report.
The account, based on a single unnamed official who was present at the private meeting, was reported by TechCrunch on October 1. No other outlet has independently confirmed what was said in the room.
According to the official cited by Time, Grok told Trump that Maduro was “a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator” and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. The official said Trump “came away thinking Grok was ingenious” after celebrations broke out following the operation.
Weeks after the December meeting, on January 3, 2026, U.S. forces captured Maduro in a raid and flew him to the United States, where he faces narcoterrorism and drug-trafficking charges in Brooklyn and has pleaded not guilty, according to Reuters.
The report lands as Musk’s companies move deeper into Pentagon work. TechCrunch reported that the Pentagon’s head of artificial intelligence said in June that the military used Grok Gov to deploy and strike targets during the Iran war, and that the Pentagon recently tapped Musk and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey to co-lead a study on advanced battlefield technology.
Time’s account describes Grok predicting a likely public reaction rather than recommending the operation. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment carried in the reports.
