Elon, stop trying to make Grok happen
The Verge says Grok is lagging rivals in government use, even as Musk leans on it to justify SpaceX’s AI-heavy valuation.
The Verge argues that Musk keeps pitching Grok as central to his AI story, but real-world adoption looks weak. Reuters data show Grok appearing far less often than OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic in government AI records.
Elon Musk keeps telling people his chatbot Grok is a big deal.
But the article says many government workers seem to use other chatbots more often because they work better. It is like a school choosing the best pencil, not the shiniest one.
That matters because Musk is also using Grok to help sell a huge company story. If the chatbot is not popular or useful enough, the big promise behind it gets much harder to believe.
Analysis
Grok’s adoption problem
The Verge says a Reuters review found Grok or xAI mentioned only a handful of times in federal records of government AI use, and even then mostly for basic tasks like document drafting or social media management. By contrast, OpenAI appeared in hundreds of examples, while Google and Anthropic showed up far more often too.
Musk’s bigger pitch
The article uses that weak adoption data to question Musk’s broader business strategy. SpaceX’s IPO filing puts AI, and Grok specifically, at the center of a huge valuation story, with the company claiming a vast addressable market driven mainly by enterprise AI. The piece suggests that if Grok is not winning broad adoption, the valuation narrative looks shakier.
Quality, reputation and training questions
The Verge says people quoted by Reuters summed up Grok bluntly: it is not the best model out there. The article also notes that xAI has reportedly used OpenAI models to help train Grok, which complicates Musk’s pitch that Grok is a top-tier rival. On the consumer side, the chatbot’s public version is described as intentionally obnoxious, with a history of offensive and conspiratorial outputs.
The article’s core claim is straightforward: Musk has spent heavily promoting Grok, but the evidence in government usage and competitive benchmarks suggests it is still lagging. That gap matters because Grok is being used as part of the case for one of the most ambitious valuations in corporate history.
Key points
- Reuters data cited by The Verge shows Grok appearing rarely in government AI records.
- OpenAI, Google and Anthropic appear much more often in those records.
- The article says Grok is mostly used for basic admin tasks when it does appear.
- SpaceX is tying a large part of its AI valuation story to Grok.
- The Verge says the gap between hype and adoption makes Musk’s pitch look weak.
