Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is breaking free (well, not literally). X has made Grok available to all users without the previous premium price tag.
Previously confined to X Premium subscribers, Verge reported that Grok now offers free users 10 message credits every two hours, along with the ability to generate 10 images in the same timeframe. It’s Musk’s latest chess move in a heated AI arms race that’s as much about ideology as it is about technology.
Developed by xAI, Musk’s dedicated AI company, Grok has positioned itself as the rebellious alternative to more “constrained” chatbots. Musk has repeatedly criticized competitors like ChatGPT for being too “woke,” promising Grok as a more free-speech-friendly conversational partner. The chatbot can access X’s entire content corpus, giving it real-time information and the ability to embed responses directly into social media posts.
With OpenAI’s ChatGPT boasting over 300 million weekly active users, Musk is clearly looking to carve out his own space in the AI scene. The move to make Grok free is likely a calculated attempt to broaden its user base and challenge established players like Google’s Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.
xAI has been playing the long game, recently raising $6 billion and bringing its total funding to $12 billion. The company is building a supercomputer in Memphis with plans to house up to 1 million GPUs, a massive infrastructure play that shows serious intent to compete with AI giants.
For Musk, this goes beyond just technological innovation. The xAI shares have become a creative financial instrument, used to repay investors who took a hit during his Twitter (now X) acquisition. The company is now valued at $50 billion.
The launch comes amid Musk’s ongoing legal battle with OpenAI, a company he co-founded but later left due to disagreements about its direction. He’s currently suing the organization over its transition from a non-profit to a commercial entity, a move that some see as ironic, given that Musk himself reportedly urged the company to become less open and more investor-friendly.
While Grok is still working out some kinks (like most AI, it’s prone to occasional hallucinations), the free access and text-to-image capabilities make the chatbot an interesting option for curious users. Rumors suggest that there is a potential standalone app in the works, which would put Grok on equal footing with competitors like ChatGPT.
