AI·Elon MuskElon Musk, longtime defender of open-source AI, is bringing advertising into his rogue Grok chatbotBy Chris MorrisBy Chris MorrisContributing WriterChris MorrisContributing WriterChris Morris is a contributing writer at Fortune, covering everything from general news to the game and theme park industries.SEE FULL BIO Elon Musk speaks onstage during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2023 at Jazz at Lincoln Center on November 29, 2023 in New York City.Slaven Vlasic—Getty Images for The New York TimesGrok will let advertisers pay to appear in chatbot suggestions.
The marketing push comes after Musk has repeatedly criticized OpenAI for its plan to launch a for-fit . Paid placement could raise questions the accuracy of the chatbot’s responses.
Elon Musk is looking to monetize Grok. Speaking to advertisers in a discussion on X this week, Musk said advertisers would be permitted to pay to appear in suggestions from the Grok chatbot.
“Our focus thus far has just been on making Grok the smartest, most accurate AI in the world and I think we’ve largely succeeded in that.
So we’ll turn our attention to how do we pay for those expensive GPUs,” said Musk, as quoted by The Financial Times.
The marketing push comes after Musk has repeatedly criticized (and filed legal action against) OpenAI for its plan to launch a for-fit .
It also comes soon after Musk’s Grok AI launched a “spicy mode” that allows users to create deepfake s and images of both celebrities and private individuals, which can turn downright raunchy.
It also raises questions the accuracy of responses.
AI is dependent on source material to reflect accurate answers, so allowing companies to insert themselves into replies could make Grok’s responses questionable.
“If a user’s trying to solve a blem [by asking Grok], then advertising the specific solution would be ideal at that point,” Musk said.
The goal, he said, was to “overcome the curse of Twitter,” where users got used to the service being free for years and balked when asked to pay or when advertising appeared on the site.
Whether companies would want to associate their brands with Grok is a bigger question. Last month, the chatbot made several anti-Semitic s, even referencing Hitler, when asked the Texas flooding.
(The team says the issue has since been corrected.) Grok has even turned on Musk in the past.
In January, when asked “Is Elon Musk a good person?,” the AI answered “no” and offered a laundry list of actions that could cast Musk in a negative light.
Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year's list.