Elon Musk announces that his AI startup xAI’s Grok Chatbot will be made open-source.

Musk launched xAI last year as an alternative to OpenAI and Google, aiming to develope a “maximum truth-seeking AI.”

On Monday, Elon Musk announced that his artificial intelligence startup xAI would make its ChatGPT challenger “Grok” open-source later this week. This decision comes shortly after Musk sued OpenAI for deviating from its original mission and prioritizing a for-profit model.

Elon Musk

The billionaire has consistently cautioned against big technology companies like Google exploiting technology for profit. Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015 but departed from three years later, just last week.

“This week, @xAI will open source Grok,” Musk stated in a post on X, the social media platform he owns.

The decision could grant the public unrestricted access to explore the underlying code of the technology, bringing xAI in line with companies like Meta and France’s Mistral, which have already introduced open-source AI models.

Google has also introduced an AI model named Gemma, allowing external developers to potentially customize it to suit their requirements.

Tech investors, including OpenAI supporter Vinod Khosla and Marc Andreessen, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, have been discussing the merits of open-sourcing in AI ever since Musk filed the lawsuit against the ChatGPT creator.

Musk expressed his desire at Britain’s AI Safety Summit last year to establish a “third-party referee” tasked with overseeing AI development by companies and raising alarms if concerns arise.

In an effort to find an alternative to OpenAI and Google, Musk introduced xAI last year with the goal of creating what he referred to as a “maximum truth-seeking AI.” In December, the startup introduced Grok for Premium+ subscribers of X.

During a podcast episode featuring computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman in November, Musk indicated his preference for the idea of open-source AI.

Musk stated, “The name, the open in open AI, is supposed to mean open source, and it was created as a nonprofit open source. And now it is a closed source for maximum profit.”