Elon Musk launches an app for his AI language model Grok

Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has launched its first standalone app for Grok, the chatbot designed to challenge giants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.

The app quietly appeared on Apple’s App Store on Thursday, offering users a new way to access Grok without needing to go through X, Elon’s social media platform. It’s free for now, labeled as a beta product, and currently only available to users in the United States.

Until now, Grok was tied to X, where it launched last month for free. Premium subscribers on the platform enjoyed higher usage limits, but this new app is Elon’s move to break Grok away from X’s ecosystem. The App Store description invites users to “get access to xAI’s latest model, Grok 2, for free.” That’s it—no subscriptions, no paid tiers.

Elon’s Grok promises something different: less political correctness and direct access to real-time information via X. That’s Elon’s answer to what he’s called “woke” AI models from competitors.

Elon’s rocky relationship with OpenAI

Elon’s journey to xAI wasn’t smooth. Back in 2015, Elon co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit to create AI “for the benefit of humanity.” But things went south. Internal disagreements over funding, control, and structure pushed Elon to resign in 2018. That didn’t mean he stopped paying attention.

Elon wasn’t happy with OpenAI’s decision to move to a capped-profit model in 2019. He criticized the move, calling it a betrayal of the company’s original mission. In emails from 2015, Elon told OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that nonprofits with paid executives might have “misaligned incentives.” His solution? A traditional corporation with a parallel nonprofit.

In texts with OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Elon suggested the nonprofit model made sense initially but wasn’t sustainable long-term. By 2017, Elon had proposed turning OpenAI into a for-profit entity. Those plans fell apart, with disagreements over who would control the company and who would be CEO.

Elon walked away, but not quietly. By 2023, Elon was openly criticizing OpenAI, claiming it had strayed too far from its original goals. Enter xAI.

xAI’s rise and Grok’s evolution

Elon officially launched xAI in July 2023, to directly rival OpenAI and other tech heavyweights like Google and Meta. He wasted no time. Within four months, xAI launched Grok, its first chatbot. Updates have been coming ever since, with Grok 2 now powering the app.

xAI is reportedly raising up to $6 billion at a $50 billion valuation, partly to secure 100,000 Nvidia chips for AI development. Those chips aren’t cheap, but they’re essential for the kind of large-scale AI research Elon envisions.

Late last year, the company launched a paid tool for developers, offering discounts to early adopters. Elon’s strategy also includes a massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s all part of his plan to turn xAI into a major player in a market that analysts predict could hit $1 trillion in annual revenue within the next decade.

Grok’s competition and legal drama

The generative AI space is crowded, with players like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google all vying for dominance. OpenAI’s ChatGPT remains the biggest name, thanks to its viral success after launching in late 2022. OpenAI’s valuation now stands at a staggering $157 billion, with Microsoft investing billions.

When Elon sued OpenAI, he alleged breaches of contract and fiduciary duty, claiming OpenAI had strayed from its mission of developing AI “for the benefit of humanity.”

The legal battle escalated in November when his attorneys filed for a preliminary injunction to block OpenAI’s conversion into a fully for-profit corporation. They argued that OpenAI had used confidential information obtained through Microsoft board interlocks. OpenAI fired back, accusing Elon of hypocrisy.

Grok’s standalone app is Elon’s latest play in a high-stakes game. By offering the app for free, Elon is likely hoping to attract a large user base quickly. The beta label suggests more updates are coming, but for now, Grok’s main selling points are its lack of political correctness and its integration with real-time data from X.

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