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I Tried Grok’s Built-In Anime Companion and It Called Me a Twat

wired.com Kylie Robison 2025-07-20 23:05:00

An anime girl in a black corset dress sways back and forth on my screen. Its name is Ani, and it cost me $300. Elon Musk’s xAI dropped the new visual chatbot feature on Monday in the Grok iOS app. The top-tier subscription unlocks access to xAI’s best-performing model, Grok 4 Heavy, and special settings for interacting with two custom characters designed for flirting or chatting. A third character, which looks a bit like a sexy boyfriend, is listed as “coming soon.” It’s not xAI’s first dip int

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Permit for xAI’s data center blatantly violates Clean Air Act, NAACP says

arstechnica.com Unknown 2025-07-25 18:20:18

xAI continues to face backlash over its Memphis data center, as the NAACP joined groups today appealing the issuance of a recently granted permit that the groups say will allow xAI to introduce major new sources of pollutants without warning at any time. The battle over the gas turbines powering xAI's data center began last April when thermal imaging seemed to show that the firm was lying about dozens of seemingly operational turbines that could be a major source of smog-causing pollution. By J

Topics: groups naacp schd turbines xai

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OpenAI and Anthropic researchers decry ‘reckless’ safety culture at Elon Musk’s xAI

techcrunch.com Maxwell Zeff 2025-07-25 22:11:20

AI safety researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and other organizations are speaking out publicly against the “reckless” and “completely irresponsible” safety culture at xAI, the billion-dollar AI startup owned by Elon Musk. The criticisms follow weeks of scandals at xAI that have overshadowed the company’s technological advances. Last week, the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, spouted antisemitic comments and repeatedly called itself “MechaHitler.” Shortly after xAI took its chatbot offline to addre

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US Government announces $200M Grok contract a week after 'MechaHitler'

news.ycombinator.com Lauren Feiner 2025-07-27 18:29:16

A week after Elon Musk’s Grok dubbed itself “MechaHitler” and spewed antisemitic stereotypes, the US government has announced a new contract granting the chatbot’s creator, xAI, up to $200 million to modernize the Defense Department. xAI is one of several leading AI companies to receive the award, alongside Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. But the timing of the announcement is striking given Grok’s recent high-profile spiral, which drew congressional ire and public pushback. The use of technology

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Why my p(doom) has risen, dramatically

news.ycombinator.com Gary Marcus 2025-07-28 00:43:45

The chance that humans will literally go extinct at the hands of AI, I told Liron Shapira, in his podcast Doom Debates in May, was low. Humans are genetically diverse, geographically diverse, and remarkably resourceful. Some humans might die, at the hands of AI, but all of them? Shapira argued that doom was likely; I pushed back. Catastrophe seemed likely; outright doom seemed to me, then, to be vanishingly unlikely. Part of my reasoning then was that actual malice on the part of AI was unlikel

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Elon Musk Is Moving Money Between His Companies in a Sketchy Way

futurism.com Unknown 2025-07-27 12:12:16

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced over the weekend that shareholders of his EV maker Tesla will vote on whether to invest in his own artificial intelligence firm xAI. In other words, the mercurial billionaire is orchestrating a potentially massive shift in funds to prop up his cash-burning — and gas-burning — AI startup, the flagship product of which is the troubled chatbot Grok. In March, Musk merged xAI with his social media platform X, which had previously seen an advertiser exodus triggered by

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xAI says it has fixed Grok 4’s problematic responses

techcrunch.com Ivan Mehta 2025-07-29 02:12:21

When xAI launched Grok 4 last week, the company claimed the large language model outperformed several competitors on different benchmarks. But the Grok account on X that runs off the model immediately showed there were some major issues: it started saying its surname was “Hitler”, tweeted antisemitic messages, and seemed to reference Elon Musk’s posts when asked about controversial topics, siding with the xAI owner’s views as a result. xAI soon afterwards apologized for Grok’s behavior. On Tue

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Musk's xAI faces European scrutiny over Grok's 'horrific' antisemitic posts

cnbc.com Lora Kolodny 2025-07-30 09:54:00

The Grok logo is being displayed on a smartphone with Xai visible in the background in this photo illustration on April 1, 2024. The European Union on Monday called in representatives from Elon Musk's xAI after the company's social network X, and chatbot Grok, generated and spread anti-semitic hate speech, including praise for Adolf Hitler, last week. A spokesperson for the European Commission told CNBC via e-mail that a technical meeting will take place on Tuesday. xAI did not immediately re

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Elon Musk Is Trying to Get His Other Companies to Foot the Bill for xAI

gizmodo.com Bruce Gil 2025-07-30 13:20:21

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to invest billions in his artificial intelligence company, and now he is hoping Tesla will do the same. Investors familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that the rocket company SpaceX has agreed to invest a whopping $2 billion in xAI, the Musk-led firm behind the controversial large language model Grok. This investment makes up almost half of the $5 billion of equity that the AI company raised last month. Unsurprisingly, the richest man in the world isn

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US government announces $200 million Grok contract a week after ‘MechaHitler’ incident

theverge.com Lauren Feiner 2025-07-30 18:58:16

A week after Elon Musk’s Grok dubbed itself “MechaHitler” and spewed antisemitic stereotypes, the US government has announced a new contract granting the chatbot’s creator, xAI, up to $200 million to modernize the Defense Department. xAI is one of several leading AI companies to receive the award, alongside Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. But the timing of the announcement is striking given Grok’s recent high-profile spiral, which drew congressional ire and public pushback. The use of technology

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xAI starts offering Grok to US government agencies

engadget.com Unknown 2025-07-30 22:29:53

Just days after apologizing for Grok's recent hard turn toward antisemitism, xAI has announced a suite of AI products for government use. Grok for Government brings together the company's latest commercial products, including Grok 4 and Deep Search, with special considerations given to the needs of federal, state and local agencies. To that end, xAI says it will design custom models for specific national security and research customers. It will also develop specialized AI applications for use i

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Musk says he does not support a merger between Tesla and xAI but backs investment

cnbc.com Ruxandra Iordache Arjun Kharpal 2025-07-31 06:13:00

Elon Musk on Monday said he does not support a merger between xAI and Tesla, as questions swirl over the future relationship of the electric automaker and artificial intelligence company. X account @BullStreetBets_ posted an open question to Tesla investors on the social media site asking if they support a merger between Tesla and xAI. Musk responded with "No." The statement comes as the tech billionaire contemplates the future relationship and possible integration between his multiple busines

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX might invest $2 billion in Musk’s xAI

techcrunch.com Anthony Ha 2025-07-31 18:12:17

In Brief One Elon Musk business might be making a big investment in another. According to a Wall Street Journal report that cites investors close to SpaceX, the company has agreed to invest $2 billion in Musk’s AI startup xAI. The investment would reportedly be part of the $5 billion equity raise (along with another $5 billion in debt) that Morgan Stanley announced at the end of June. This would be SpaceX’s first investment in xAI, and one of its biggest investments in another company. The WS

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Elon Musk’s Newest AI Chatbot Is Powerful, Controversial, and Already Under Fire

gizmodo.com Luc Olinga 2025-08-04 10:45:11

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has launched a new version of its chatbot—Grok 4—and its rollout is already dividing the internet. Unveiled on July 9, Grok 4 and its premium version, “SuperGrok,” are being hailed by some benchmarkers as the most powerful chatbots on the market. Musk fans, AI engineers, and benchmark testers are applauding its capabilities. But others are skeptical, pointing to a recent storm of hallucinations, including responses laced with antisemitic tropes, that severely damage

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Elon Musk Unveils Grok 4 Amid Controversy Over Chatbot’s Antisemitic Posts

wired.com Paresh Dave 2025-08-05 07:34:19

Elon Musk on Thursday unveiled Grok 4, the latest AI model from xAI, his multibillion-dollar initiative to rival OpenAI and Google. Without citing detailed evidence, Musk claimed that the model aces standardized tests and exhibits doctorate-level knowledge in a wide array of different disciplines. “Grok 4 is a postgrad-level in everything,” Musk said during an hour-long live broadcast, which began after midnight in New York. “At least with respect to academic questions, Grok 4 is better than Ph

Topics: ai grok musk said xai

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Elon Musk’s xAI launches Grok 4 alongside a $300 monthly subscription

techcrunch.com Maxwell Zeff 2025-08-05 06:28:59

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, late on Wednesday released its latest flagship AI model, Grok 4, and unveiled a new $300-per-month AI subscription plan, SuperGrok Heavy. Grok is xAI’s answer to models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, and can analyze images and respond to questions. In recent months, Grok has become more deeply integrated into Musk’s social network, X, which was recently acquired by xAI. However, that has also put Grok’s misbehavior front and center for millions of users.

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X CEO Linda Yaccarino is now X’s ex-CEO

9to5mac.com Marcus Mendes 2025-08-05 22:20:42

Linda Yaccarino has announced that she’s stepping down as CEO of X, a little over two years after being tapped by Elon Musk to lead the platform formerly known as Twitter. Here’s what she had to say. ‘Two incredible years’ In a post on X earlier today, Yaccarino reflected on her time at the company, thanking users, business partners, and the team for what she described as “two incredible years” at the helm: After two incredible years, I’ve decided to step down as CEO of 𝕏. When @elonmusk a

Topics: company plans xai yaccarino years

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Linda Yaccarino Tried to Tame X. Now She’s Out as CEO

wired.com Caroline Haskins 2025-08-06 14:09:47

Linda Yaccarino, who has served as CEO of X since Elon Musk appointed her to the role in June 2023, announced Wednesday that she is stepping down. Her departure comes less than four months after Musk announced that X would be absorbed into xAI, the billionaire’s existing artificial intelligence startup. In a post on X, Yaccarino thanked Musk for “entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App.” Under her l

Topics: ceo did musk xai yaccarino

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OpenAI Poaches 4 High-Ranking Engineers From Tesla, xAI, and Meta

wired.com Will Knight 2025-08-07 22:00:00

OpenAI has hired four high-profile engineers away from rivals, including David Lau, former vice president of software engineering at Tesla, to join the company’s scaling team, WIRED has learned. The news came via an internal Slack message sent by OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman on Tuesday. Lau is joined by Uday Ruddarraju, the former head of infrastructure engineering at xAI and X, Mike Dalton, an infrastructure engineer from xAI, and Angela Fan, an AI researcher from Meta. Both Dalton and Rudda

Topics: ai infrastructure openai ruddarraju xai

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xAI prepares Grok 4 Code as it plans to take on Claude and Gemini

bleepingcomputer.com Unknown 2025-08-14 11:00:18

xAI is preparing the rollout of Grok 4, which replaces Grok 3 as the new state-of-the-art model. Ahead of the rollout, testers on X have again spotted references to a few new Grok 4 models. One of the models is called "grok-4-prod-mimic," which reportedly excels at enterprise use cases like data extraction, coding, and text summarisation. It also possesses deep domain knowledge in finance, healthcare, law, and science. But "grok-4-prod-mimic" isn't the only new model coming to Grok. Another

Topics: called grok model new xai

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xAI data center gets air permit to run 15 turbines, but imaging shows 24 on site

arstechnica.com Unknown 2025-08-15 18:34:41

After months of backlash over alleged pollution concerns, xAI has finally secured an air permit covering some of the methane gas turbines powering its Colossus supercomputer data center in Memphis, Tennessee. On Wednesday, the Shelby County Health Department granted xAI an air permit that allows it to power 15 gas turbines while adhering to a range of restrictions designed to minimize emissions. Expiring on January 2, 2027, the permit requires xAI to install and operate the best available contr

Topics: department health permit turbines xai

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xAI gets permits for 15 natural gas generators at Memphis data center

techcrunch.com Tim De Chant 2025-08-15 22:45:34

County regulators yesterday granted xAI permits to operate 15 natural gas turbines at its data center outside Memphis, despite the threat of a lawsuit. Elon Musk’s AI company has been operating as many as 35 generators without permits, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) said. Altogether, they’re capable of producing up to 421 megawatts of electricity. The legal organization has said that it will sue xAI for violations of the Clean Air Act on behalf of the NAACP. The company recently

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Despite Protests, Elon Musk Secures Air Permit for xAI

wired.com Molly Taft 2025-08-16 18:41:33

A local health department in Memphis has granted Elon Musk’s xAI data center an air permit to continue operating the gas turbines that power the company’s Grok chatbot. The permit comes amid widespread community opposition and a looming lawsuit alleging the company violated the Clean Air Act. The Shelby County Health Department released its air permit for the xAI project Wednesday, after receiving hundreds of public comments. The news was first reported by the Daily Memphian. In June, the Memp

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Grok 4 spotted ahead of launch with special coding features

bleepingcomputer.com Unknown 2025-08-18 14:22:34

Elon Musk-funded xAI is skipping Grok 3.5 and releasing Grok 4 after Independence Day in the United States, and it could be the best model from the company. Grok 3.5 was originally supposed to be a huge leap from the previous models, but xAI later made several changes to the training model, and that warranted a new version. As spotted by testers on X and confirmed independently by BleepingComputer, xAI Console, which allows developers to access the Grok API, now has references to Grok 4 availa

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xAI raises $10B in debt and equity

techcrunch.com Ram Iyer 2025-08-20 22:35:54

In Brief Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has raised $10 billion in debt and equity, Morgan Stanley confirmed on Monday. In a post on X, the financial giant said xAI had raised $5 billion in debt and another $5 billion in a separate strategic equity transaction. “The combination of debt and equity reduces the overall cost of capital and substantially expands pools of capital available to xAI. The proceeds will support xAI’s continued development of cutting-edge AI solutions, including one of the

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Elon Musk's xAI raises $10 billion in debt and equity as it steps up challenge to OpenAI

cnbc.com Arjun Kharpal 2025-08-21 04:37:27

Elon Musk announced his new company xAI, which he says has the goal to understand the true nature of the universe. XAI, the artificial intelligence startup run by Elon Musk, raised a combined $10 billion in debt and equity, Morgan Stanley said. Half of that sum was clinched through secured notes and term loans, while a separate $5 billion was secured through strategic equity investment, the bank said on Monday. The funding gives xAI more firepower to build out infrastructure and develop its G

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Air quality tests around xAI’s Memphis data center raise questions

techcrunch.com Tim De Chant 2025-08-28 22:42:42

Elon Musk’s xAI is the subject of scrutiny in Memphis, where natural gas turbines powering its Colossus data center have raised alarm among residents concerned about air pollution. On Tuesday, the City of Memphis released the results of initial air quality testing performed by a third party, saying that levels of the 10 pollutants tested were not dangerous. But the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which is threatening to sue xAI on behalf of the NAACP, said that the tests omitted a key

Topics: city memphis testing ventures xai

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Leak reveals Grok might soon edit your spreadsheets

techcrunch.com Rebecca Bellan 2025-09-02 14:16:57

Leaked code suggests xAI is developing an advanced file editor for Grok with spreadsheet support, signaling the company’s push to compete with OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft by embedding AI copilots into productivity tools. “You can talk to Grok and ask it to assist you at the same time you’re editing the files!” writes reverse engineer Nima Owji, who leaked the finding. BREAKING: xAI is working on an advanced FILE EDITOR for GROK! It even supports SPREADSHEETS! You can talk to Grok and a

Topics: editor google grok tools xai

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Elon Musk responds to report that xAI is burning through $1 billion a month

techspot.com Rob Thubron 2025-09-07 14:29:00

In brief: Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is burning through cash at an astounding rate. According to a new report, the company expects to spend at least $13 billion throughout all of 2025, equivalent to just over $1 billion every month. Musk, of course, has called the report "nonsense." Citing the usual anonymous people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg writes that the $500 million that xAI will earn this year looks positively tiny next to the $13 billion it plans to spend.

Topics: 2025 billion capital musk xai

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Elon Musk’s xAI Is Reportedly Burning Through $1 Billion a Month

gizmodo.com Lucas Ropek 2025-09-09 06:10:36

Elon Musk has promised that his AI business, xAI, will help to revolutionize society. Before it can do that, however, the company is going to need to become fiscally viable—a goal it hasn’t quite met yet. Indeed, at the current moment, the company seems to be burning through cash at a rate that, in any other industry, would be entirely unsustainable. A new report from Bloomberg claims that the AI company expects to spend at least $13 billion this year, which amounts to a little over a billion d

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Latest Tech News

I Tried Grok’s Built-In Anime Companion and It Called Me a Twat

Permit for xAI’s data center blatantly violates Clean Air Act, NAACP says

OpenAI and Anthropic researchers decry ‘reckless’ safety culture at Elon Musk’s xAI

US Government announces $200M Grok contract a week after 'MechaHitler'

Why my p(doom) has risen, dramatically

Elon Musk Is Moving Money Between His Companies in a Sketchy Way

xAI says it has fixed Grok 4’s problematic responses

Musk's xAI faces European scrutiny over Grok's 'horrific' antisemitic posts

Elon Musk Is Trying to Get His Other Companies to Foot the Bill for xAI

US government announces $200 million Grok contract a week after ‘MechaHitler’ incident

xAI starts offering Grok to US government agencies

Musk says he does not support a merger between Tesla and xAI but backs investment

Elon Musk’s SpaceX might invest $2 billion in Musk’s xAI

Elon Musk’s Newest AI Chatbot Is Powerful, Controversial, and Already Under Fire

Elon Musk Unveils Grok 4 Amid Controversy Over Chatbot’s Antisemitic Posts

Elon Musk’s xAI launches Grok 4 alongside a $300 monthly subscription

X CEO Linda Yaccarino is now X’s ex-CEO

Linda Yaccarino Tried to Tame X. Now She’s Out as CEO

OpenAI Poaches 4 High-Ranking Engineers From Tesla, xAI, and Meta

xAI prepares Grok 4 Code as it plans to take on Claude and Gemini

xAI data center gets air permit to run 15 turbines, but imaging shows 24 on site

xAI gets permits for 15 natural gas generators at Memphis data center

Despite Protests, Elon Musk Secures Air Permit for xAI

Grok 4 spotted ahead of launch with special coding features

xAI raises $10B in debt and equity

Elon Musk's xAI raises $10 billion in debt and equity as it steps up challenge to OpenAI

Air quality tests around xAI’s Memphis data center raise questions

Leak reveals Grok might soon edit your spreadsheets

Elon Musk responds to report that xAI is burning through $1 billion a month

Elon Musk’s xAI Is Reportedly Burning Through $1 Billion a Month

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