Elon Musk told Tesla staff to move to using Grok, the AI model from his own xAI (now folded into SpaceX), according to a memo sent to employees on Friday.
The push comes days after Tesla capped employee spending on third-party AI tools — and it lands even though Musk himself concedes Grok is not as good as its rivals.
What the memo says
Musk told staff they should switch to Grok “when possible” given Grok 4.5’s lower token costs compared to competitors, according to the memo, first reported by The Information. He also asked engineers to email him directly with feedback on the model.
The directive follows Tesla setting a $200 weekly limit on employees’ AI spending earlier this week. That cap applies to models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google — but pointedly exempts xAI’s Grok, the tool Musk is now telling staff to adopt.
