Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot is going open source, but maybe not for the right reasons

Minimal brownie points only as emails show that Elon Musk supported OpenAI’s push for profit

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

In its bid to become one of thebest AI toolsaround right now, Elon Musk is set to release the source code to X Corp’s Grok AIchatbotto the public this week.

The decision, asTechCrunchreports, comes withMusk’s filing of a lawsuitin early March 2024 againstChatGPTdeveloperOpenAI, claiming that it has strayed from its original purpose of developing artificial intelligence technology ‘for the benefit of humanity’ and now pursues profit.

OpenAI, a company that, until February 2018, Musk was a founding board member of, has nowpublicly refutedthe lawsuit by presenting emails spanning over a decade that purport to show Musk supporting the push for the company to make a profit, and even for a merger with Tesla.

Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a solid 49% of a great point

Musk had reportedly invested $44 million in the company before leaving in February 2018 to do such good for the planet ascommitting the civil offense of libelas an exercise in public relations andspreading misinformation about Covid-19up until the point that he caught it.

So, the best metaphor that comes to mind for Musk is that of a stopped clock. It’s hard not to argue that free andopen source softwareis good and worth fighting for, especially if the alternative isbeing funded by Microsoft.

At the same time, he’s been warning against AI’s threats to privacy for years,but can still get the facts wrongeven when his broader point hits the mark.

As a parting thought in the town square of ideas, consider that XAI’s Grok is currently in early access, locked behind an X Premium subscription.

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

Given that Musk owns X, and that Grok will still likely be hosted on it as an X Premium feature, it’s worth considering whether incentivising X Premium subscription purchases is also ‘for the benefit of humanity', and whether Musk’s plan to make Grok open-source is just, at the most charitable, a PR stunt designed to get ahead of those e-mails, and at the least, a theater play put on by a hypocrite.

Grok may be about to be open-source, but I fear that, to Musk, the move may be as part of a ‘gotcha’ moment, rather than him genuinely believing that the public domain is where it belongs, because it’s hard to believe that Musk has ever been about doing good for humanity.

More from TechRadar Pro

Luke Hughes holds the role of Staff Writer at TechRadar Pro, producing news, features and deals content across topics ranging from computing to cloud services, cybersecurity, data privacy and business software.

This new malware utilizes a rare programming language to evade traditional detection methods

Google puts Nvidia on high alert as it showcases Trillium, its rival AI chip, while promising to bring H200 Tensor Core GPUs within days

Arcane season 2 confirms the hit series isn’t just one of the best Netflix shows ever made – it’s an animated legend that’ll stand the test of time