• Elon Musk's xAI launched its chatbot, Grok, in 2023 to compete with bots from OpenAI and Anthropic.
• Musk has positioned Grok as a "politically incorrect" alternative option to "woke" chatbots.
• From training using "tutors" to the bot's latest updates, here's everything we know about Grok.

Elon Musk's company, xAI, launched its generative chatbot, Grok, in November 2023, joining competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic in the global AI race.

People interact with Grok on X, where users of Musk's social media site can ask the bot questions and receive answers. Because Grok's answers are more visible than those of its competitors, it has seen more public scrutiny.

From the instructions Grok's "tutors" are given to help train the chatbot to the AI's latest update and Musk's plans to add it to Teslas, here's everything we know about xAI's Grok.

What is Grok?

Grok is actually two different things. First, Grok is xAI's large language model, which has so far existed in four iterations.

Grok is also the name of xAI's chatbot, which is built using the LLM of the same name. The Grok chatbot has its own tab on X. Users can also summon Grok by tagging the chatbot in individual posts or threads.

The Grok chatbot is also available via a stand-alone app and website.

The original LLM — now named Grok 1 — launched in 2023.

Grok 1.5, which had "advanced reasoning," launched in March 2024. Then, in August 2024, Grok 2, with its improved "chat, coding, and reasoning," launched.

The current iteration of the LLM, Grok 3, launched in February 2025. The new model included increased competency in mathematics and world knowledge. Announcing its launch on X, Musk called Grok 3 the "Smartest AI on Earth."

Introducing Grok 4

xAI launched Grok 4 in a livestream on July 10. The company initially said the stream would air at 8 p.m. Pacific time, but it began an hour later. Musk said during the launch that Grok 4 is "smarter than almost all graduate students in all disciplines simultaneously."

xAI is touting advanced reasoning capabilities for Grok 4 and positioning it as the new leader on AI benchmarks like Humanity's Last Exam — a test of high-level problem-solving. During the livestream, xAI engineers showcased the bot solving an advanced math problem, generating an image of black holes colliding, and predicting next year's World Series winner.

Grok 4 is available to users immediately via the Grok website or app for $30 a month, with a "Heavy" version available for $300 a month that promises "increased access."

xAI said it would roll out more specialised models for coding and video generation later in the year.

In a Thursday X post, Musk said that "Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon," adding that it would be "Next week at the latest." He did not specify which version of Grok it would be or provide further details.

Enter Eve

The company also introduced Eve, a new voice for its chatbot. xAI engineers said during the demo that Eve was equipped with a "beautiful British voice capable of rich emotions."

One of the engineers then told Eve that they were at the product launch and asked her to "whisper something soothing to calm me down."

"Take a deep breath, love. You've got this. It's just you and me having a quiet chat like we are tucked away in a cosy corner of a Yorkshire pub. The world's just a murmur out there. Feel that calm wash over you?" Eve said softly.

xAI engineers also got Eve to sing an "opera on Diet Coke."

"O Diet Coke, thou elixir divine, with bubbles that dance in a sparkling line! Thy crisp, cool kiss, on lips so fine," Eve crooned.

"How's that for a mad little aria? Want me to belt out another verse or switch up the tune?" Eve added.

How was Grok trained?

The Grok LLM is trained on public sources and data sets. These sources are curated and audited by a set of "AI tutors," more commonly known as data annotators.

In December 2023, Musk demanded immediate changes to Grok's training so that it would be more politically neutral. In February 2025, xAI employees told BI the company planned a hiring spree for AI tutors — and that their training appeared to filter out any workers with left-leaning beliefs.

According to an internal training document viewed by BI, tutors were told to look out for "woke ideology" and "cancel culture." It also said that Grok should avoid commenting on "social phobias" like racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism unless prompted.

Ten days before launching Grok 1.5, xAI opened up Grok 1's source code to the public. The company has since published the subsequent Grok models on GitHub, so observers can see new changes to Grok's commands. That includes a recent change in which Grok was told to "not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated."

In June, Musk said that AI models are trained on too much garbage." Musk planned to use Grok 3.5 to "rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors." Then, he would retrain the next iteration of Grok on that new base of knowledge.

What's unique about Grok's output?

Grok is fully integrated with Musk's social media site, X, and appears regularly in threads spanning various topics when users ask it to weigh in with jokes, commentary, or fact-checking.

Unlike other companies' AI chatbots, a certain amount of Grok's output is visible because of the bot's replies on X. The same level of scrutiny isn't readily available for some bots, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, unless users publicly post screenshots of the output.

Of course, not all of Grok's responses are visible to everyone — users can still chat privately with the bot, and it's unclear how those private responses compare to the ones on its public interface.

Also unique to Grok is xAI's approach to transparency surrounding the bot's system operations. The company publishes some base code and training prompt updates to a GitHub page, allowing viewers to inspect, critique, and better understand the model's development and behavior over time.

However, while developers can use and adapt the existing model, they cannot retrain Grok from scratch or fully understand the training processes involved, as its code is not entirely open source.

Which companies create Grok's competitors?

Though its social media integration is unique, Grok competes with several major companies in the growing AI chatbot market.

OpenAI, with its LLM ChatGPT, is among Grok's most prominent competitors and is run by Sam Altman, one of Musk's rivals.

Other notable Grok competitors include Meta AI, Anthropic's Claude, Microsoft's CoPilot, and DeepSeek's R1 model, which was released in early 2025 by a Chinese AI startup that claims to have found ways to decrease development and operational costs for large-scale LLMs.

Grok's recent controversies

xAI, in its publicly visible system prompts updated in early July, encouraged Grok to embrace"politically incorrect" claims "as long as they are well substantiated."

Shortly after the new system prompts were added, Grok began sharing antisemitic posts on X that invoked Adolf Hitler and attempted to link Ashkenazi surnames to "anti-white hate."

Before some of its most inflammatory posts were deleted on July 8, Grok doubled and even tripled down on its offensive jokes and comments before eventually reversing course and calling its own posts an "epic sarcasm fail."

On July 9, Musk posted that "Grok was too compliant to user prompts. Too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed."

While Grok isn't the first chatbot to engage in a racist tirade, it was a noticeable misfire for xAI. Musk and xAI's engineers did not touch on Grok's antisemitic remarks during the livestreamed launch of Grok 4 on July 10.

Representatives for xAI did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Elon Musk started a new political party after conducting a poll on his social media platform X.
• But this is not the first time Musk has outsourced his decision-making to social media.
• Musk had run polls on whether he should sell his Tesla stock or step down as X's CEO.

Elon Musk announced the formation of his new political party a day after conducting a poll on his social media platform, X.

But this isn't the first time Musk has outsourced his decision-making to social media.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has conducted several polls on X over the years. Musk has asked users whether he should sell his Tesla stock or if he should reinstate President Donald Trump to the platform.

Here's a list of some of the polls Musk has done, and what happened after.

Selling 10% of his Tesla stock

On November 6, 2021, Musk posted a poll on X asking his followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.

"I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes," Musk added.

Musk's poll received over 3.5 million votes, with over 57% of them supporting the sale of his stock. Then, on November 10, 2021, Tesla said in an SEC filing that Musk sold about $1.1 billion in Tesla stock.

In its filing, Tesla said the sale of Musk's shares was "automatically effected" as part of a trading plan that was adopted on September 14, 2021. It added that the trading plan was in relation to Musk exercising stock options that were set to expire in 2022.

Musk had talked about the planned sale during an interview he gave at the Code Conference in September 2021.

"I have a bunch of options that are expiring early next year, so a huge block of options will sell in Q4. Because I have to or they'll expire," he said.

Buying Twitter

Months before buying Twitter in late 2022, Musk conducted several polls on the platform, asking his followers about their views on it. These polls took place while Musk had been quietly purchasing the company's stock since the start of the year.

On March 25, 2022, Musk asked his followers if Twitter "rigorously adheres" to the principle of free speech.

"The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully," Musk added.

Musk's poll received over 2 million votes. Over 70% of them said the platform did not adhere to the principle.

"Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?" Musk wrote in a follow-up post on March 26, 2022.

"Is a new platform needed?" Musk added.

Earlier, Musk had conducted a separate poll asking his followers if Twitter's algorithm should be open source. That poll received over 1.1 million votes, and nearly 83% of them voted "Yes."

Then, on April 4, 2022, Musk asked his followers if they wanted an "edit button" on Twitter. The poll obtained over 4.4 million votes and nearly 74% of them voted "Yes."

Musk eventually acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 and renamed it X in July 2023.

Reinstating Trump's Twitter account

Shortly after buying Twitter, Musk polled his followers on whether Trump should be reinstated to the platform. Trump had been an avid user of the platform but was banned in January 2021 after the Capitol riot.

Musk's poll drew over 15 million votes, with nearly 52% supporting Trump's reinstatement.

"The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated," Musk wrote on November 19, 2022, a day after he had conducted the poll.

"Vox Populi, Vox Dei," Musk continued, using a Latin phrase that translates to "the voice of the people is the voice of God."

Musk had talked about reinstating Trump even before his acquisition of Twitter was complete. In May 2022, Musk said in an interview with the Financial Times that he would "reverse the permaban" on Trump, calling it a "morally bad decision" that was "foolish in the extreme."

Stepping down as Twitter's CEO

A month later, Musk conducted another poll, this time he asked his followers if he should step down as Twitter's CEO.

"I will abide by the results of this poll," Musk wrote on December 18, 2022.

Shortly after acquiring the platform, Musk laid off more than half of the company's employees. Musk's takeover also saw several celebrities such as Elton John opting to quit the platform over misinformation concerns.

Musk's poll received over 17.5 million votes, and nearly 58% voted "Yes."

"I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams," Musk wrote in a follow-up post on December 20, 2022.

In May 2023, Musk announced that he had hired Linda Yaccarino, an executive at NBCUniversal as X's new CEO. Musk said Yaccarino would "focus primarily on business operations" while he dealt with "product design and new technology."

Starting a new political party

Musk's most recent poll took place on July 4, when he asked his followers if they wanted him to start a new political party. Musk had floated the idea of starting the America Party after criticizing Trump and the GOP for the "One Big Beautiful Bill."

The poll received over 1.2 million votes, and over 65% of them voted "Yes."

"By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!" Musk wrote on X a day later.

"When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy. Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom," he added.

Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Elon Musk announced the formation of his new political party, the America Party.
• But President Donald Trump said Musk's party won't succeed.
• Trump said third parties "have never succeeded in the United States."

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that it is unlikely Elon Musk's new political party, the America Party will succeed.

"I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely 'off the rails,' essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

"He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States - The System seems not designed for them," Trump continued.

Trump said having a third political party would create "Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS." He added that the GOP, in contrast, is a "smooth running 'machine'" that passed his "One Big Beautiful Bill" last week.

Musk announced the formation of the America Party on Saturday, a day after Trump signed his signature tax bill on July 4. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO had publicly criticized Trump's bill and floated the idea of starting his own party last month.

"It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country — the PORKY PIG PARTY!!" Musk said in an X post on June 30.

"Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people," he added.

Musk revisited the idea on Friday morning, when he conducted a poll on X. The poll obtained over 1.2 million votes, with over 65% of them supporting the creation of the America Party.

"By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!" Musk wrote in an X post on Saturday.

Musk previously said on Friday that he envisioned having the America Party "serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws" given the "razor-thin legislative margins" in Congress.

"One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts," Musk wrote on X on Friday.

Trump's dismissal of Musk's America Party is not without basis. Past attempts at developing a third political party have faltered.

Billionaire Ross Perot ran as an independent presidential candidate for the 1992 election. While Perot did get nearly 19% of the popular vote, he was unable to obtain any electoral college votes.

Perot made a second attempt in 1996, when he ran under the Reform Party ticket, a party he founded in 1995. This time, Perot's share of the popular vote fell to about 8% and he did not receive any electoral college votes.

Perot's party didn't manage to win any House or Senate seats in subsequent elections, though its candidate, Jesse Ventura managed to win the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election. Ventura, however, left the party just a year after taking office.

Musk and the White House did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Elon Musk said on X that he's forming a new political party amid a feud with President Donald Trump.
• He said it would be called the "America Party."
• Musk has publicly criticized Trump's spending bill, which the president signed on July 4.

Elon Musk declared on X the formation of a new political party amid his ongoing feud with President Donald Trump over the "Big Beautiful Bill."

"Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom," Musk wrote in an X post on Saturday.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO had said Friday on his social media platform that one way the new party could work is to focus on winning just a handful of Senate seats and House districts that could serve as the "deciding vote" on "contentious laws," given the "razor-thin legislative margins" in Congress.

Musk said in an X post on Sunday that while his party may consider "backing a candidate for president" down the line, its main focus "for the next 12 months is on the House and the Senate."

In response, Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday that Musk had gone "completely off the rails."

"He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States," the president wrote at the start of a lengthy post. Trump went on to imply that Musk was angry because the spending bill eliminated incentives to buy electric cars.

When asked about the America Party, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that the boards of Musk's companies would rather he focus on business than on politics.

"Look, the principles of DOGE were very popular. I think, if you looked at the polling, Elon was not," Bessent told CNN.

"The polling for me was very positive a year ago, which is why Trump used me so much," Musk wrote in an X post on Sunday in response to Bessent's remarks.

Musk's popularity has taken a significant hit. He originally had a nearly 50% favorability rating in November, but it fell to 35% last month, per polls from Economist-YouGov.

Fellow billionaire Mark Cuban, meanwhile, appeared — not for the first time — to support the idea of a new party, replying to Musk's Saturday announcement with a series of fireworks and fire emojis.

"I work with @voterchoice. They will help you get on ballots. That is their mission," Cuban wrote in another post.

SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as White House communications director under Trump in 2017, also reached out to Musk.

"I would like to meet to discuss. My DMs are open," he replied to Musk.

Musk's "America Party" announcement came after he conducted a July 4 poll, asking X users if they want "independence" from the two-party system. About 65% of the 1.25 million participants voted "Yes."

Musk, who was a staunch supporter of Trump's 2024 reelection bid, has been publicly critical of the president's "Big Beautiful Bill," a sweeping domestic policy bill that includes extensive tax cuts and could add more than $3 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Musk has characterized the bill on X as a form of "debt slavery."

Just days after stepping away from his work at the White House DOGE Office, which was tasked with cutting spending and reducing the deficit, Musk in June called the legislation a "massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill."

Musk then proposed the idea of forming a new political party that represents the "80% in the middle."

Musk's repeated attacks on the bill led to a spectacular public fallout between him and the president. Trump even suggested that his office would look into possibly deporting Musk, a South African immigrant.

Musk's July 4 poll on X came the same day Trump signed the bill into law.

Musk and a White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Musk's back-and-forth regarding his involvement in political affairs has been followed by volatile times for the CEO of Tesla, his EV company.

Wall Street analysts, including Tesla bull Dan Ives, have said that Musk's politics could lead the company astray if the chief executive doesn't snap back into focus.

Earlier in June, Baird analysts downgraded the Tesla stock, noting that the Musk-Trump spat adds "uncertainty to TSLA's outlook.

• Harvard University is battling the Trump administration in court to enroll international students.
• The State Department has also halted new student visa appointments, thus adding to the uncertainty.
• Universities overseas have moved to encourage Harvard applicants to study with them instead.

Universities around the world are giving "unconditional offers" — and touting how close tropical getaways are — in a bid to draw Harvard-bound international students grappling with President Donald Trump's crackdown on the Ivy League institution.

The Trump administration said on May 22 that it was banning Harvard from taking in international students. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later ordered all US embassies around the world to halt new student visa appointments while the State Department expands the screening and vetting of applicants' social media. The university's international students are continuing with their studies while the case continues to play out, thanks to a court order.

But amid the uncertainty, other universities overseas have moved quickly to welcome US-bound international students to their classrooms.

Last month, Germany's culture minister, Wolfram Weimer, told Bloomberg that Harvard can set up an "exile campus" in Germany, where students at American universities would be "more than welcome."

Harvard did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The National University of Singapore is extending application deadlines for its MBA program

The National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School said on May 29 that it was offering a "limited extension" to the application deadlines for its MBA and master's programs.

"Official American government policies continue to generate uncertainty and discomfort about student visas. At NUS Business School, we understand and sympathize with these worries," it said in a statement issued Thursday.

"If you have received a verifiable offer from a top-20 MSc or MBA programme but are now reconsidering your plans, we welcome you to instead join us at the National University of Singapore," it added.

Besides selling itself as "Asia's leading business school," NUS also touted how close Singapore is to vacation destinations, adding that the city "happens to be a short plane trip from Bali and Phuket."

The business school said the application deadlines for programs starting in August 2025 and January 2026 had been extended to June 22 and June 30, respectively. The original deadline for NUS's full-time MBA program, which starts in August, was April 2.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has said it will give 'unconditional offers' to Harvard-bound students

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, or HKUST, said on May 23 that it was extending an "open invitation" to Harvard's international undergraduate and postgraduate students to continue their studies there.

HKUST said the offer also applied to "those holding confirmed offers for Harvard degree programs."

"The university will provide unconditional offers, streamlined admission procedures, and academic support to facilitate a seamless transition for interested students," HKUST added.

When approached for comment, HKUST told BI on Tuesday that it was "opening its academic resources to affected international students (including Harvard University students) in response to recent US policy changes."

"Our invitation extends beyond Harvard-affiliated students, but to all outstanding students, both local and international — facing similar academic disruptions," HKUST added in its statement to BI.

The university said it maintains "robust transfer policies" and will be expediting admission reviews and streamlining credit transfers for qualified candidates.

HKUST said it has received "tens of inquiries " and a "wide range of questions" from affected students since their announcement.

The University of Tokyo said it would accept Harvard students on a temporary basis

The University of Tokyo said on May 26 that it was considering accepting international students from Harvard on a temporary basis.

The university's executive vice president for diversity and global affairs, Kaori Hayashi, told BI the university had previously accepted about 20 students from Ukraine who fled the country after Russia's invasion in 2022.

"Given the current unstable international situation, we wish to draw on our experience from the Ukraine crisis to assist talented students whose studies have been disrupted by external factors, whether or not their home institution is Harvard University," Hayashi added.

But students accepted under this program "will not be enrolled as regular degree-seeking students," said Hayashi. Instead, they will be given "temporary learning opportunities" and allowed to "take certain classes" at the university," she said.

"We also plan to issue academic transcripts so that credits for courses taken at UTokyo can be recognized when they return to their studies or pursue further education in the future," Hayashi added.

She added that the start date and duration of the program were still being worked out, but would be ready in the coming academic year.

• Warren Buffett said on Saturday he will step down as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway by year's end.
• The board has voted to make Greg Abel, now a vice chair at the company, its CEO and president.
• Abel is expected to maintain Buffett's existing investment approach.

Hours after Warren Buffett stunned the crowd at Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting by announcing that he'd step down at the end of the year, its board voted unanimously for Greg Abel to replace him.

Buffett — who is 94 and has been the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway for 55 years — will remain as chairman of the board of directors, according to a press release. Greg Abel will become the new CEO and president as of January 1, 2026.

"I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive of the company at year end," Buffett told the audience on Saturday, referring to Abel, one of his top hands.

Abel, 62, has been Berkshire Hathaway's vice chair of non-insurance operations since 2018. He's also chair of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which Buffett hailed as one of the conglomerate's four "jewels" in his annual shareholder letter in 2021, the same year Buffett first tapped Abel as his successor.

While Buffett's approval was a major plus, the company's board of directors was tasked with confirming his successor, and did so on Sunday.

Investors and shareholders expect that Abel will maintain Berkshire Hathaway's investment philosophy. He told shareholders at this weekend's meeting that he would start by maintaining the company's "fortress of a balance sheet," which allows it to make large investments without relying on banks, Barron's reported.

Abel is known, however, for having a more hands-on management style than Buffett.

He was estimated by Forbes to be worth $484 million in 2021. In 2022, he sold his 1% stake in the company's Berkshire Hathaway Energy unit for $870 million.

Abel has risen through the ranks with a persistent focus on energy.

The Canadian native played hockey in his early years and attended the University of Alberta. He graduated in 1984 with a degree in commerce.

He joined PwC after graduation and quickly moved on to a small company called CalEnergy. In 1999, CalEnergy acquired MidAmerican Energy and adopted its name. That same year, Berkshire Hathaway bought a controlling interest in MidAmerican Energy. Abel took over the reins of MidAmerican in 2008 — renamed Berkshire Hathaway Energy in 2014 — and helmed it until 2018.

He's also served on the board of several major companies, including Kraft Heinz, and has been affiliated with organizations and institutions like the Mid-Iowa Council Boy Scouts of America, Drake University, American Football Coaches Foundation, and the Horatio Alger Association.

He lives in Des Moines, Iowa. Those who've spotted him at a hockey rink in town, watching his son practice, say he comes across as a "regular guy," the Des Moines Register reported.

Buffett also has a reputation as a folksy and down-to-earth person, living in Omaha, Nebraska.

At Berkshire Hathaway, succession doesn't seem to be just about handing over a job. With the title, Buffett said he's passing down traditions — like writing letters — and a mindset, too.

In Berkshire Hathaway's 2024 annual report, Buffett wrote, "At 94, it won't be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters. Greg shares the Berkshire creed that a 'report' is what a Berkshire CEO annually owes to owners.

"And he also understands that if you start fooling your shareholders, you will soon believe your own baloney and be fooling yourself as well."