Elon Musk has spent years positioning Grok as the “truth-seeking” alternative to ChatGPT. The US government, apparently, wasn’t looking for that particular kind of truth.
A Reuters investigation reviewed more than 400 examples of federal AI use where specific vendors were named. Grok or xAI appeared in exactly three of them. For context, OpenAI’s tools, including ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, showed up in 234 cases. Google’s Gemini appeared in 33. Anthropic’s Claude landed at 26.
Rock-bottom pricing, rock-bottom results
The lack of traction is especially notable given how aggressively xAI priced its way into the government market. A General Services Administration agreement signed in September 2025 made Grok available to federal agencies at $0.42 per organization, with the contract running through March 2027.
To put that in perspective, OpenAI’s access costs $1 per year per agency. Grok undercut even that bargain-basement price by more than half. And still, almost nobody bought in.
