 "Elon Musk speaks at an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington. File image/ AP")
As Elon Musk has emerged as the most powerful person in the United States after President Donald Trump, there are concerns whether he is keeping his work and business interests separate. There are already signs that he is using his position and influence in the government to advance his business interests.
In the latest such episode, concerns have risen that Musk may train, or has already been training, his Grok artificial intelligence (AI) service from all the data that the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) has accessed. Among other sensitive data , Doge has accessed the social security system and is currently seeking data of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that has everyone’s tax records. The Doge is also engaged with the Departments of Defense and State.
While concerns about the misuse of the confidential information with businessman Musk and his novice team have long been raised, concerns are now being raised that Musk may feed, or has already been feeding, all of this data to Grok to train the AI system. Such fears stem from Musk’s announcement that he is going to introduce AI into the work of federal government.
However, the White House has rejected the charge. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Politico that any such claim is “unequivocally false”.
However, not everyone is convinced. There is complete opacity around how Doge is working and how Musk is using AI at Doge.
Democratic Congress Ro Khanna told Politico, “There need to be strict guardrails and transparency on the use of any federal data for AI. This is true for the government’s own use of this data. It is even more critical for the use by private companies, where there should be equal access and stringent protections of privacy. All of this needs to be dictated by Congress, not the whims of the Trump administration.”
The concerns are such that even some Republicans are saying there need to be guardrails.
Ryan Girdusky, a pro-Trump conservative strategist, told Politico, “I would like Republicans to find guardrails for any private entity, though, whether it be Elon Musk or George Soros, who gets a hold of federal data. And there seems to be no effective, or very few effective, guardrails in obtaining and holding and using federal data.”
Impact Shorts
View AllEven as the White House has said Musk is not using AI to train Grok, even Grok is not 100 per cent sure that is not the case.
When Firstpost asked whether Grok has been fed data accessed by Doge, it said that “it’s theoretically possible”.
Separately, Politico reported that Grok replied “it’s plausible that data Doge accessed could have flowed to xAI projects like Grok 3”.
Even though Musk and Trump have said the idea behind Doge is to cut opaque government spending, there is no transparency at Doge and the organisation is prone to misrepresentation. It has been working primarily via posts on X with no clarity on whether it is just making reports, passing around recommendations, or actually empowered to make decisions. Moreover, even though Musk has essentially been running Doge and has engaged as Doge’s head in meeting with world leaders, the White House has said that he is not the head . No one knows who the head of Doge is at the moment.
Pascal Hetzscholdt, an AI professional, noted in an article on Substack said that the “hypothetical scenario of a powerful AI like Grok 3, raises serious concerns about the potential for data to be used to assess individuals’ loyalty and suppress dissent”.
Hetzscholdt further said, “The accumulation of vast amounts of data, combined with advanced AI analytics, could create a powerful tool for social control and political repression. Safeguards such as strong privacy laws, independent oversight, and ethical AI development are crucial to prevent these potential abuses.”