Over the Halloween weekend, some Grok Bot users woke up to find something particularly “spooky”: their weekly usage allowance had been unexpectedly exhausted, despite not having used SpaceX’s proxy AI during the night. Several users on X reported that their usage progress jumped directly from as low as 50% to 100%.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X on Sunday that this was not a malfunction.
In responding to a user’s question, he wrote: “The cost of operating the Grok Bot is unsustainable relative to its revenue.” He did not elaborate further on this issue in his main account’s posts, yet he continued to claim that the Grok Bot can help you buy gifts for your family.
The Grok Bot has consistently been positioned as a success story for this newly listed SpaceX subsidiary. Last month, the company stated in a filing that AI currently accounts for 52% of its revenue. Its renamed “Super Intelligence” division generated a profit of $431 million—a rarity in the AI industry. This profit would have been even higher had it not been for a one-time $1.2 billion cost related to the acquisition of Cursor. Musk recently called the Grok Bot “the fastest-growing product I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Elon Musk has not yet clarified how subscribers' usage limits will be affected going forward.