ChatGPT Challenged: Elon Musk Makes Grok 4 Free for All Amid Deepfake Video Controversy
In a strategic and bold move that has caught the attention of the tech world, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company XAI has announced that its most recent AI model, Grok 4, is now free for all users worldwide. This announcement came just a month after the official launch of Grok 4, which was previously available only to SuperGrok and X Premium subscribers.
The news was confirmed directly by Elon Musk via a post on X (formerly Twitter), where he stated, “We’re rolling out Grok 4 to everyone for a limited time so that more people can explore its capabilities.” This public rollout appears to be a strategic response to the recent launch of GPT-5 by OpenAI, which also made its powerful AI available free of charge to users globally.
As a result, the AI landscape is heating up, with both tech giants now offering high-performance generative models for free, aiming to capture a wider base of users and drive long-term engagement.
While Grok 4 is now open to all, the more advanced version, Grok 4 Heavy, is still restricted to paying SuperGrok Heavy subscribers. According to insiders at XAI, Grok 4 Heavy is the most powerful variant developed by the company to date, packed with enhanced reasoning, speed, and multimodal capabilities. It is being held back as a premium offering in order to sustain the business model and cover the costs associated with running large-scale AI infrastructure.
This move from XAI follows closely on the heels of OpenAI’s rollout of GPT-5, which was described as the company’s most intelligent and human-like model so far. In that context, Musk’s decision to democratize Grok 4 access seems calculated—not just to increase exposure, but also to reclaim AI dominance from rivals like OpenAI, a company Musk co-founded but later parted ways with over differing visions.
However, the timing of this announcement is also crucial, as it comes amid growing controversy surrounding another feature by XAI—Grok Imagine, an AI-powered video generation tool launched just last week.
According to reports, Grok Imagine is currently free to all users in the U.S., with enhanced request limits available for paid subscribers outside the country. This feature allows users to generate high-quality video content using simple prompts—a functionality that has generated excitement as well as concern.
In just a few days after the rollout of Grok Imagine, serious allegations surfaced regarding the misuse of the tool, particularly to generate deepfake videos of celebrities like Taylor Swift and Sydney Sweeney. A report by BBC confirmed that several users were able to exploit Grok Imagine to create fake but hyper-realistic videos of public figures without consent. The incident has sparked global debate on ethical boundaries, AI regulation, and content moderation in the realm of generative tools.
Critics have called for immediate safeguards, including watermarking, AI-generated content detection, and stricter user verification, to prevent misuse. XAI has yet to release an official statement addressing the deepfake allegations, but sources suggest that an internal review is underway.
Adding to the business dimension of this rollout, Elon Musk recently revealed another major update during a discussion on X Spaces. Musk announced that ads will soon be introduced into the Grok chatbot interface, both on the website and mobile app.
“We need additional revenue streams to cover the high cost of GPUs required to power our AI models,” Musk stated. He further added that these ads will be seamlessly integrated between chat responses and suggestions, aiming to balance user experience with monetization.
The idea of monetizing AI responses is not entirely new, but Musk’s openness in discussing it shows a practical approach to making the product sustainable in the long run. Critics, however, have raised concerns about how ads in an AI interface might affect response quality, impartiality, and user trust.
Despite the ad-related apprehensions and Grok Imagine controversy, the larger strategy seems clear: XAI is aggressively expanding its user base by offering powerful tools for free, much like how Google, Facebook, and OpenAI did during their early AI model releases.
In the AI arms race, offering a free, high-performing model has become an essential move to not only gain market traction but also collect large-scale user interaction data to refine future models.
As things stand today, Grok 4’s free rollout has been welcomed enthusiastically by tech enthusiasts, developers, and content creators, especially those who were previously priced out of using premium AI models. Whether this gamble pays off in the long run remains to be seen, but it’s certainly a masterstroke in Musk’s larger plan to challenge ChatGPT and reclaim leadership in the AI space.
