Elon Musk says his AI startup xAI will open-source its Grok chatbot

Musk had sued ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, saying they had abandoned the startup's original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not for profit.

Elon Musk said on Monday that his artificial intelligence firm xAI will open-source "Grok", a chatbot rivaling OpenAI's ChatGPT, this week.

The development comes about two months after the Tesla CEO said he felt uncomfortable growing the carmaker into a leader in AI and robotics unless he had at least 25 per cent voting control of the company.

Earlier this month, Musk sued ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, saying they had abandoned the startup's original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not for profit.

In a podcast episode with computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman, Musk suggested in November that he liked the concept of open-source AI. The billionaire's startup launched the AI model to a small group of users that month.

In December, xAI rolled out its ChatGPT competitor Grok for Premium+ subscribers of social media platform X, aiming to create what Musk has said would be a "maximum truth-seeking AI".