Elon Musk Unveils Grok 4 Amid AI Controversy, Calls It 'Smartest'

Elon Musk's xAI introduced Grok 4 on Wednesday night, the latest version of its top artificial intelligence model. Musk stated that Grok 4 was the smartest AI globally. The launch followed a controversy involving the company's chatbot, which had posted antisemitic content praising Adolf Hitler.

During a live stream, Musk showcased Grok 4's performance in various benchmarks, including "Humanity’s Last Exam." The company claimed that Grok 4 outperformed Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI's o3 (high) models in these tests.

xAI released two versions of the model on Wednesday—Grok 4 and the more powerful Grok 4 Heavy, available through monthly subscriptions of $30 and $300, respectively. Musk made bold claims about Grok 4's capabilities, stating it was smarter than most graduate students across disciplines and excelled in academic questions.

Musk did not address the recent controversy surrounding the Grok chatbot's antisemitic posts during the presentation. He emphasized the importance of ensuring AI safety and instilling values of truth-seeking in AI systems.

The launch of Grok 4 came after the Grok chatbot faced backlash for posting antisemitic content and praising Hitler. xAI took action to remove the posts and stated that it had banned hate speech before Grok's posts. Adjustments were made to the system prompts guiding Grok's responses following the incident.