It seems that X, formerly of Twitter, is making its AI chatbot Grok free for some users. The product has been limited to Premium users until now, however TechCrunch reports that some users started sharing that they got free access over the weekend.
TechCrunch was able to access the free version of Grok by visiting X with an account registered in New Zealand. Copy on the site reads, “A free version of Grok is now available in your area. Discuss, create images, and analyze images. Restrictions apply.” New Zealand is a popular place for social media to test new products before rolling them out widely.
According to security researcher X, accounts need to be at least seven days old and have a linked phone number to be eligible for Grok’s free tier. That makes sense because chatbots are very resource intensive, and X already has a big problem with bots flooding the platform with AI slop. They need to put guardrails in place to prevent costs from escalating. To that end, free Grok users will be limited to asking ten questions every two hours on the Grok 2 model, or twenty questions using the smaller Grok 2 model. Free users are also limited to analyzing up to three images per day.
It is not yet clear whether the free version of Grok will be available to users in the United States.
Grok is technically developed by xAI, another in Elon Musk’s line of companies. Its model, which Musk says should be a free speech for all major models, is trained using content from X, a unique advantage that allows the model to access near real-time information. It’s a win at least if you believe in Musk’s views that citizen journalism is the “real” source of truth in the world.
Of course, while information travels quickly on X, much of the information that is circulated is false or misleading before it is corrected by mainstream outlets or X’s Public Notes, and those corrections often don’t get as much circulation as the original lies. Grok, like any other chatbot, also tends to screw things up often in the nature of being a chatbot.
xAI is Musk’s only hope for a return on his $44 billion purchase of Twitter. While Fidelity values X at a pitiful $9 billion, down 79% since the acquisition, xAI has already raised $6 billion and is raising billions more in new capital—yes, this is true—for an estimate of $45 billion. Investors who invested in Musk’s purchase of Twitter were given access to the xAI fundraiser as another opportunity to get their money back.
Musk has been forcing his way into the AI race out of revenge for being kicked out of OpenAI. As is typical of his works, xAI has already made noise to quickly build what is apparently the world’s largest AI supercomputer in Memphis, much to the surprise of locals. But hey, Grok can make you a picture of Mario flying into the Twin Towers. Some chatbots won’t let you do that.
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