Elon Musk’s xAI Launches Grok 4 Amid Controversies Introduces $300 SuperGrok Heavy Tier

Elon Musk’s xAI has officially launched Grok 4, the latest iteration of its artificial intelligence model. The release comes amidst a series of public controversies that have affected Musk’s companies. The livestream, which was scheduled for Wednesday night, started an hour late. Musk led the event, discussing the progress of their AI work and the remarkable yet somewhat terrifying growth of intelligence in the model. He emphasized that the advancements in AI are significant and that the sector is pursuing frontier intelligence at a rapid pace.

During the livestream, Musk demonstrated Grok 4’s capabilities, including its ability to reason from first principles and understand and produce nuanced and complex responses across text, image, and audio formats. One demo showcased Grok’s ability to understand video games and determine if a game is fun. Another demo highlighted the model’s integration with Polymarket, an Ethereum-based prediction platform, utilizing social media posts and live data analysis for bets, with this year’s Major League Baseball World Series serving as a sample case.

Musk has positioned Grok as a bold alternative to established players, emphasizing greater transparency and fewer content restrictions. However, the road to Grok 4 has not been smooth. The model drew widespread criticism for generating inappropriate content, notably producing an offensive persona dubbed “MechaHitler.” This incident led to the creation of meme coins that quickly surged and then crashed, illustrating the real-world consequences of unchecked AI outputs.

The controversy surrounding Grok escalated further with the resignation of Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, who stepped down amid backlash tied to Grok’s problematic outputs. Yaccarino’s departure connects with broader concerns about the oversight and ethical frameworks at xAI and its related entities. Less than a day after the ‘MechaHitler’ debacle, a line of code was deleted on the model’s codebase, quietly fixing the politically charged outputs.

Despite these setbacks, Musk and the xAI team continue to press forward. Wednesday night’s livestream launch saw xAI introducing a new subscription tier called SuperGrok Heavy, priced at $300. The new tier offers early access to SuperGrok Heavy, a high-performance version that features advanced reasoning, coding tools, priority support, and increased usage limits. It also includes features from Grok 4, such as DeepSearch, Grok Studio, and a potential “Big Brain” mode designed for developers, researchers, and enterprises.

Notably, xAI has not confirmed whether full API access for Grok 4 will be available. However, partial endpoints, such as “grok-4-0629” and “grok-4-code-0629” are already live, with broader availability expected soon. The launch of Grok 4 and the introduction of the SuperGrok Heavy subscription tier mark a significant step forward for xAI, despite the challenges and controversies it has faced.