Elon Musk said he would make his Grok chatbot, a rival to ChatGPT, open source as his feud with OpenAI deepens

Elon Musk announced on Monday his intention to release his Grok chatbot, positioning it as a competitor to ChatGPT, as tensions between him and OpenAI escalate.

The billionaire entrepreneur unveiled Grok late last year, aiming to keep pace with OpenAI, a company he co-founded in 2015 alongside CEO Sam Altman and initially provided crucial financial backing for.

Having parted ways with OpenAI a few years later, Musk made headlines last week by filing a surprising lawsuit against the company, accusing it of deviating from its original non-profit mission to democratize AI research.

"This week, @xAI will open source Grok," Musk declared in a post on X, thrusting himself into one of Silicon Valley's most hotly debated philosophical discussions about the future of artificial intelligence.

The tech industry is increasingly divided over the trajectory of AI development and how best to advance the technology.

On one side are proponents of an open-source model, such as Meta, advocating for transparency and collaboration to foster innovation among researchers and companies.

Meta, IBM, and numerous startups and researchers joined forces in December to form an alliance in defense of a more open and cooperative approach to AI, fearing that regulatory measures could hinder progress in this direction.

On the opposing side are champions of secrecy, including OpenAI and Google, who argue for tighter controls to safeguard the technology from misuse and to generate revenue to offset the high costs of developing cutting-edge AI tools.

Shortly after initiating his lawsuit, Musk hinted in a post that he would drop the case if OpenAI rebranded itself as ClosedAI.

OpenAI dismissed Musk's legal action and his advocacy for open-source development as little more than a response to sour grapes following his departure from the company.

"Seeing OpenAI's remarkable technological advancements, Musk now seeks to replicate that success for himself," the company asserted in a court filing.

"While Musk claims to bring this suit for the benefit of humanity, it is clear – even from his contradictory statements – that he does so to advance his own commercial interests."

Musk stands out as one of the few investors worldwide capable of rivaling OpenAI, Google, or Meta in the AI arena.

However, building an AI model on the same scale as these companies requires substantial investment in computing power, infrastructure, and expertise.