IT之家 November 2 news: Elon Musk says the era of AI abundance will eventually arrive, but for now, Grok Bot still cannot be used without limits.
The SpaceX CEO posted on X platform last Sunday local time: some users reported that their weekly quota was being consumed much faster than usual; in response, he said the AI agent’s service cost is “too high relative to revenue to sustain.”
Grok Bot is an AI agent launched by SpaceX in August; it relies on a virtual computer to complete various tasks such as shopping for people. The product is available in multiple tiers, ranging from a free version to a plan costing $200 per month (IT之家 note: at the current exchange rate, about 1,332 yuan RMB).
All tiers have usage limits that reset weekly. SpaceX and other AI agents such as Meta’s Muse all use this approach to prevent users from incurring huge computing bills.
Over the weekend, a large number of Grok Bot users posted on X saying that their quotas were exhausted faster than expected, and this matter also prompted Musk to respond.
He replied to one user: “Is the price increase for upgrading to a higher-quota plan too high?” In another reply, he mentioned that lowering the quota and informing users was “just the rational thing to do.”
In last month’s financial report, SpaceX disclosed that Grok Bot’s paying weekly active users had reached 800,000. Musk said to investors at the time that this AI agent is “the fastest-growing product I’ve seen in my life.”
He also added: “I think Grok Bot may eventually consume the vast majority of our superintelligent compute.”
SpaceX recently announced that it will bundle Grok Bot into a new X subscription package priced at $8 per month (at the current exchange rate, about 53.3 yuan RMB); the package will also include X Premium membership and the AI coding tool Cursor acquired this year. Musk revealed in October that Grok Bot will not only call the Grok model, but will also be able to access Claude Opus 5.5, MidJourney, and Suno.
AI agents have become the hottest new track in the tech industry, but how the business model can be profitable remains full of questions.
Meta’s Muse is very popular, with users exceeding 10 million, but the company has not disclosed its operating costs. However, Zuckerberg admitted to investors last month that this agent “consumes an enormous amount of compute” and is not yet profitable.
Musk admitted that Grok Bot is burning money, which also prompted some X users to tease him — not long ago he also said that the era of AI abundance is coming soon and that saving money itself is “meaningless.”