Amid the growing rivalry with OpenAI, Elon Musk confirmed that Grok AI chatbot will be available for X premium users. Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for deviating from its original mission. Musk’s XAI also open sourced Grok AI under the Apache 2.0 license.
Billionaire and XAI owner Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that his company’s AI chatbot, Grok, will become available to all X Premium users later this week. The move coincides with a growing rivalry between Musk and his former venture, OpenAI. Musk recently launched legal action against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, accusing them of deviation from the startup’s core mission of advancing AI for the good of humanity.
In light of the lawsuit, OpenAI and its flagship product, ChatGPT, have faced criticism from Musk, who has labeled the San Francisco-based startup as “closed AI”. In a recent development, Musk’s XAI has followed in the footsteps of Meta and Mistral by releasing Grok AI under the Apache 2.0 license.
What exactly is Grok and how can it be used? Musk introduced Grok AI in November last year as an alternative to popular chatbots in the market like ChatGPT and Gemini (formerly Bard). Inspired by Douglas Adams’ sci-fi novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Grok was designed to provide answers with a touch of humor and rebelliousness. Until now, access to Grok was limited to X Premium+ subscribers, which cost ₹1,300 per month or ₹13,600 annually.
However, from this week, users with X Premium subscription, which costs ₹650 per month or ₹6,800 per year, will also be able to interact with the Grok AI. Still, Musk has not yet confirmed whether Grok will eventually be available to all X users, similar to the accessibility of ChatGPT version 3.5.
According to a report from TechCrunch, Musk’s decision to extend Grok access to all premium customers may be part of an effort to consolidate X’s customer base amid reports of declining usage. Data from Sensor Tower indicates an 18% year-over-year decline in X usage in the US as of February, with a further decline of 23% since Musk took control of the company.
Additionally, Musk’s conflicts with advertisers have resulted in 75 of the top 100 US advertisers on X pausing their ad spending on the platform.
