Gary Zhou 
Key Points
- 🚀 Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI is launching its first model, Grok.
- 📈 Grok will be available to X Premium Plus subscribers.
- 💰 Users can subscribe to this tier for $16 a month.
- 🌐 Grok will have real-time access to the X platform.
- 📖 The name “Grok” originates from the novel “Stranger in a Strange Land” and signifies a deep understanding.
- 😄 Grok will have a sense of humor and sarcasm.
- 🌍 Grok’s knowledge is limited to what is available on the internet through reasonable browser searches.
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI is set to launch its first model, Grok, according to multiple posts from the Tesla CEO this week.
In a post on X on Friday, Musk announced that the xAI Grok AI assistant would be included with X Premium Plus. He also reiterated the point in an additional post on Saturday, adding that users can subscribe to the upgrade tier of the social media platform tier for $16 a month.
The software is the first product to be launched by the company since Musk started xAI in July.
Musk also noted on Friday that Grok would become available to subscribers of the tier “as soon as it’s out of early beta.” It isn’t clear at this point when it’s expected to exit the early beta phase.
Not much is known about the AI assistant, but Musk has also said that Grok will have real-time access to the X platform, which he said was a huge advantage when compared with other generative AI models.
On the origin of the name “Grok,” Musk called one take “accurate” after another user used GPT-4 to ask about the meaning of “grok,” to which the OpenAI foundation model responded that the word originates from the 1961 novel “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein.
The book’s use of the term, according to the AI model, refers to a Martian word “that means to understand something or someone so completely that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It’s a deep, almost metaphysical understanding.”
The rivaling language model also detailed the modern use of the word “Grok,” which has found a place in the tech world to “suggest a profound level of comprehension of software programming, technology, or a complex subject matter.”
Musk also said that Grok would have more of a sense of humor and sarcasm than other generative language models, even sharing a few screenshots from discussions with the AI. You can see his screenshots below.
Musk also noted in a response to Whole Mars Blog that the threshold for what Grok will tell you, “if pushed, is what is available on the Internet via reasonable browser search.”
The Premium Plus tier on X comes as a range of tiers set to be offered on the platform, including two lower tiers called Basic and Basic Plus. The company also says on its support page for the tiers that pricing on Premium will start at $3 per month or $32 per year, based on localized pricing.
Although X and xAI are not the same company, it’s not abnormal for Musk’s businesses to work together. Some examples include the Boring Company’s use of Tesla vehicles in its underground loops and Musk’s previous hopes for utilizing OpenAI at Tesla.
