Elon Musk‘s artificial intelligence startup xAI has launched Grok 4, positioning it as the world’s most powerful AI model according to benchmarks that show it outperforming OpenAI‘s ChatGPT, Google‘s Gemini, and Anthropic‘s Claude.
What Happened: The new model debuts through SuperGrok Heavy, a premium subscription tier starting at $300 monthly that provides enhanced rate limits and early access to new features.
The launch comes as xAI seeks to raise $5 billion through Morgan Stanley while navigating tensions between Musk and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) board members over his divided attention due to the Tesla CEO’s political activities.
Musk claimed Grok 4 achieves “PhD levels in every subject” with “no exceptions” when handling academic questions. The model demonstrated superior performance on ARC-AGI benchmarks, scoring 66.6% on version 1 and 15.9% on the more challenging version 2 tests.
These results significantly exceed competing models, with OpenAI’s o3 achieving 60.8% on ARC-AGI v1 and 6.5% on v2. Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 reached 35.7% and 8.6% respectively, while Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro scored 41.0% and 4.9%.
The benchmark measures artificial general intelligence capabilities through reasoning tasks, with Grok 4’s performance suggesting substantial advancement in AI reasoning abilities. However, the model operates at higher computational costs per task compared to competitors.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives recently called for the company’s board to facilitate a potential merger between Tesla and xAI, arguing it could create an “AI stalwart” supporting Tesla’s robotaxi and humanoid robotics initiatives.
Musk previously stated that autonomous and robotics will “overwhelmingly dominate” Tesla’s future financial success.
Why It Matters: The Grok 4 launch occurs amid xAI’s broader expansion, including its Memphis supercomputer facility that recently received permits for natural gas turbine operations despite community opposition.
The company reportedly plans to deploy one million GPUs sourced primarily from Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD).
xAI’s valuation has surged to $113 billion following its March acquisition of social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
The company recently completed a $300 million share sale and continues pursuing $20 billion in equity funding at valuations potentially reaching $200 billion.
Musk’s focus on xAI development comes as Tesla faces autonomous vehicle competition and mounting pressure from shareholders regarding his time allocation across multiple companies. He recently withdrew from his Department of Government Efficiency role.
Read Next:
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo courtesy: JRdes / Shutterstock.com
