From Musk’s chatbot to Maduro’s capture: is AI now whispering in Trump’s ear before US operations?

A Time report says President Donald Trump consulted Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot weeks before U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, asking how Venezuelans might react. Grok reportedly predicted that many would welcome Maduro’s removal. Separate reporting says Anthropic’s Claude was used during the operation to help analyse intelligence, though its exact role remains undisclosed. The episode has intensified debate over AI’s expanding influence in high-stakes government and military decision-making, just as Trump signed a voluntary White House accord with leading AI companies on safety controls for frontier models.