Pentagon Lays Out AI Strategy as It Plans for Future Space Missions

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Monday that the Pentagon is moving to make artificial intelligence a core part of the U.S. military’s capability, using a speech at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas to outline how AI and space technologies will shape future operations.

Hegseth said the Pentagon’s objective is to become “an AI-first warfighting force across all domains,” including both internal planning systems and frontline operations.

“Simply put, the United States must win the strategic competition for 21st century technological supremacy,” Hegseth said, highlighting artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, quantum, hypersonics, and long-range drones. “If you talk to Elon Musk long enough, he will tell you how important hypersonics and long-range drones are, and he’s 100% correct. Space capabilities, directed energy, and biotechnology are the new areas of global competition.”

Hegseth said AI will move quickly into broad operational use across the Defense Department.

“Very soon, we will have the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department,” he said, calling it “long overdue.”

In a nod to the renewed relationship between the Trump Administration and Musk, Hegseth said the Pentagon would begin using Grok.

“Today, we’re excited to announce the next frontier AI model company to join GenAI.mil, and that is Grok from xAI, which will go live later this month,” Hegseth said.

The xAI deal places Grok within a growing ecosystem of commercial AI tools already used across the federal government, alongside models from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft. Through Pentagon contracts and GSA-approved agreements, these AIs are being used for defense preparation, battle simulation, intelligence gathering, and data analysis. Hegseth said the aim is to maintain U.S. military advantage as AI capabilities spread globally.

“We must ensure America’s military AI dominance so that no adversary can exploit that same technology to hold our national security interests or our citizens at risk,” he said.

He criticized existing defense acquisition timelines as misaligned with modern conflict.

“In modern warfare, the fastest innovator and iterator will be the winner,” Hegseth said. “We are done running a peacetime science fair while our potential adversaries are running a wartime arms race.”

Ahead of Hegseth’s remarks, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described Starbase as part of a long-term effort to push human spaceflight beyond science fiction.

“We want to make Star Trek real,” Musk said. “We want to make Starfleet Academy real so that it’s not always science fiction, but one day the science fiction turns to science fact.” He said SpaceX’s goal is to build “big spaceships with people going to other planets, going to the moon, and ultimately going beyond our star system.”

While Musk focused on how SpaceX would bring the dream of deep space exploration to life, the decision to integrate Grok into Pentagon systems has drawn criticism from civil society groups.

In a statement, J.B. Branch, Big Tech Accountability Advocate at Public Citizen, said Grok’s deployment inside the Defense Department poses serious risks.

“Allowing an AI system with Grok’s track record of repeatedly generating nonconsensual sexualized images of women and children to access classified military or sensitive government data raises profound national security, civil rights, and public safety concerns,” Branch said.

“Deploying Grok across other areas of the federal government is worrying enough, but choosing to use it at the Pentagon is a national security disgrace,” the statement continued.

In November, Public Citizen joined more than 30 civil rights, consumer protection, and technology accountability organizations in letters urging federal agencies to halt Grok’s use across government, citing safety failures, lack of transparency, and an inability to meet minimum standards for sensitive deployments.

Hegseth did not address those criticisms; instead, he continued to outline how the Pentagon will assess AI systems.

“Responsible AI at the War Department means objectively truthful AI capabilities employed securely and within the laws governing the activities of the department,” he said. “We will judge AI models on this standard alone.”

The Pentagon also called for restructuring of its data infrastructure, transforming its Advana platform into a War Data Platform intended to expand access to operational data for AI systems supporting multi-domain operations, including space.

“We’re going to heavily leverage President Trump’s tech force initiative to bring in the best and brightest from industry and academia,” Hegseth said. “With people like Elon, David Sacks, and others from the entrepreneurial and business world already in government, we have shown that we can and that we must enlist the world’s leading talent in this cause.”