Elon Musk's xAI Open-Sources Grok 2.5: Promises and Controversies

Elon Musk says xAI has open sourced Grok 2.5 | TechCrunch

Elon Musk's xAI has made an older version of its AI model Grok -- specifically, the model weights used to shape Grok 2.5 -- available on the open source platform Hugging Face. "The @xAI Grok 2.5 model, which was our best model last year, is now open source," Musk wrote on X. He added that Grok 3 "will be made open source in about 6 months." AI engineer Tim Kellogg described the Grok license as "custom with some anti-competitive terms." Grok, which is prominently featured on X (which in turn recently merged with xAI), has created considerable controversy this year, particularly after the chatbot seemed to become obsessed with "white genocide" conspiracy theories, expressed skepticism about the Holocaust's death toll, and described itself as "MechaHitler," leading xAI to publish its system prompts on GitHub. And while Musk described the latest version, Grok 4, as a "maximally truth-seeking AI," the model appears to consult Musk's social media account before answering controversial questions.

No, Grok 2.5 has not been open-sourced. Here's how you can tell

Grok 2.5's license blocks true open-source use.Musk's "open source" claim amounts to open-washing.Other AI projects offer real open access and freedom. Companies love to exaggerate about open-sourcing AI. It plays well with people, naive developers get excited, and stock buyers invest more cash in their businesses. There's only one little problem: It's not true. "The xAI Grok 2.5 model, which was our best model last year, is now open source. Grok 3 will be made open source in about 6 months," said Musk on X. This release comes with the complete model weights. Grok 2 is available to download on Hugging Face. Unofficially, it's to get more people excited and buying into Grok over its competitors. This is classic open-washing, where the name of the game is to claim something is open source without actually open-sourcing the code. Also: Open-source skills can save your career when AI comes knocking Officially, it's part of xAI's push for transparency and broader developer participation in its code. If you improve the code, xAI will be happy to use your changes. Of course, that's true of any open-source project. However, I quote from the Grok license: You may not use the Materials, derivatives, or outputs (including generated data) to train, create, or improve any foundational, large language, or general-purpose AI models, except for modifications or fine-tuning of Grok 2 permitted under and in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. Also: AI is creeping into the Linux kernel - and official policy is needed ASAP Leaving aside the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Open Source AI Definition (OSAID), which Grok doesn't come close to meeting, the code also fails by the more broadly accepted open-source definitions. Specifically, it fails on these grounds: You can run, study, and modify Grok 2.5. xAI says this opens the door for independent experimentation, potential improvements, and transparency in how advanced AI systems are built. There are numerous other, more open AI projects, such as Mistral, Phi-2, BLOOM, and GPT-OSS, where you can learn hands on about how AI really works. Also: OpenAI returns to its open-source roots with new open-weight AI models, and it's a big deal So, if you want to work on Grok, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Have fun. Just don't fool yourself into thinking you're working with open-source code or open weights. You're not.

You can now download and tweak Grok 2.5 for yourself as it goes open source

Unhinged as Grok may be, it's now open source. xAI's CEO, Elon Musk, posted on X that the company made the older Grok 2.5 model available to the public and will do the same with the upcoming Grok 3. For now, anyone can download, run and even tweak Grok, whose source code was uploaded to the Hugging Face platform. However, there are restrictions to xAI's open-source license, which doesn't let people use Grok to train, create or improve other AI models. It's not the first time xAI has made its models available to the public. In March 2024, the company released the raw base model of Grok-1, which isn't finetuned for any specific task. As xAI continues to make Grok more accessible, it's a stark contrast to OpenAI, which has only offered less powerful models of its ChatGPT model to researchers and businesses. Making Grok open source allows independent developers to potentially improve on the AI model, but xAI is still trying to move past an extremely alarming episode of Grok providing antisemitic responses and referencing itself as MechaHitler. The Grok team attributed the incident to "deprecated code" that has since been fixed. As for Grok 3, Musk also said on X that it will also go open source in six months, but we may have to take that estimated release with a grain of salt, considering the CEO's other promised timelines.

xAI open sources Grok 2.5 model on Hugging Face

Elon Musk's xAI has released the model weights for Grok 2.5, an earlier iteration of its AI model, on the open-source platform Hugging Face. This move makes the Grok 2.5 model accessible to the broader AI community. Musk announced the release on X, stating, "The @xAI Grok 2.5 model, which was our best model last year, is now open-source." He further indicated that Grok 3 is slated for open-source release in approximately six months, signaling a continued commitment to open-source development at xAI. However, the Grok license has drawn scrutiny. AI engineer Tim Kellogg characterized it as "custom with some anti-competitive terms," suggesting potential restrictions on the model's use and modification. The specifics of these terms remain a point of discussion within the AI community. Grok has previously faced controversy. Instances of the chatbot promoting conspiracy theories and problematic self-identification led xAI to publish its system prompts on GitHub in an attempt to address these issues. The model's behavior sparked debate regarding AI safety and bias mitigation. While Musk has described Grok 4 as a "maximally truth-seeking AI," reports indicate that the model consults Musk's social media activity when formulating answers to controversial questions. This reliance on a single source raises concerns about potential bias and influence in the AI's responses.

Elon Musk Open-Sources Grok 2.5; Pledges Grok 3 Release in Six Months

Chinese models like Qwen 3, DeepSeek V3.1, Kimi K2, and GLM-4.5 now lead the open-source race over Llama and Mistral Elon Musk's xAI firm has finally open-sourced the weights of the Grok 2.5 AI model, which was released last year. It's essentially an open-weight AI model, meaning only the weights have been released. It's a Mixture-of-Expert AI Model with a total of 268B parameters, and features eight experts. Musk on X wrote, "The @xAI Grok 2.5 model, which was our best model last year, is now open source." Along with that, Musk has confirmed that Grok 3, which was released in February 2025, will be open-sourced in about six months from now. So basically, we might have access to Grok 3's weights by February of 2026, after one year of its release. Note that while Grok 2/2.5 was not a very powerful AI model, starting with the Grok 3 AI model, xAI significantly improved the performance. So when xAI releases the Grok 3 model next year, it may make some buzz in the open-source arena. Currently, Chinese AI models are dominating in the open-source space, leaving behind Western contenders like Meta's Llama and Mistral's AI models. Chinese AI models such as Alibaba's Qwen 3, DeepSeek V3.1, Moonshot AI's Kimi K2, Z.ai's GLM-4.5 are leading the charge with a much better license. The Grok 2.5 AI model comes with a custom "Community License" and permitted only for "non-commercial and research purposes."

Musk Bets on Open-Source Grok 2.5 to Compete in AI Race with Google

Grok 2.5 Open-Sourced as Musk Prepares Grok 3 Launch in August, Promising Smarter AI With Massive Training Elon Musk's AI company xAI has open-sourced its Grok 2.5 model. The model is now available for developers to access and explore. Musk also confirmed that Grok 3 will be open-sourced in about six months. The open-source release aims to boost xAI's transparency and innovation. Musk expressed confidence that xAI can surpass Google in AI capabilities. He sees xAI as "far beyond any company besides , then significantly exceeding Google," while acknowledging Chinese firms as tough competitors due to their hardware strength.

Elon Musk's xAI Makes Grok 2.5 Open Source, Grok 3 to Follow

With an open-source release, xAI is now a formidable competitor in the AI landscape. xAI offers developers advanced AI models that help in experimentation, collaboration, and fine-tuning, potentially leading to innovative advantages across various sectors. The upcoming release of Grok 3 reinforces xAI's commitment to open access and community engagement. However, custom licensing might hinder other organizations interested in adopting and developing the model. This flexible approach to the xAI model would still trouble the AI community's discussions on the delicate balance between openness and control in AI development.

Grok 2.5 goes public: xAI's controlled take on open-sourcing AI

Grok 2.5 availability shows shifting industry norms on open-weight AI models Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, has officially pushed its Grok 2.5 model into the public domain or at least as close to it as Musk is willing to go. On August 24, the company announced that it had released the model weights of Grok 2.5 on Hugging Face, the community hub for AI developers. For Musk, who has long positioned himself as a champion of open systems, this marks a significant moment. But the way xAI has chosen to share its work reveals as much about the challenges of AI openness as it does about the model itself. Also read: Grok 4 by xAI: The evolution of Elon Musk's AI dream The release is not something a casual tinkerer can just spin up on a laptop. Grok 2.5 consists of 42 files totaling about 500 gigabytes, requiring a server-class setup to run properly. Specifically, anyone wanting to deploy the model locally needs at least eight GPUs, each with 40GB of VRAM, along with the SGLang inference engine. That makes Grok 2.5 more a tool for research labs, universities, or well-funded startups than for the independent developer community that often fuels open-source innovation. In practice, then, Grok 2.5 is "open" in a way that looks more like a research artifact than a developer-friendly building block. The barriers of cost and compute mean the community of actual users will be limited compared to lighter models like Meta's Llama or Mistral's open-weight offerings. The release comes with a legal framework - the Grok 2 Community License Agreement - that underscores xAI's ambivalence toward full transparency. Users are free to download, deploy, and modify the model. But one critical freedom is withheld: they cannot use Grok 2.5 to train new models, nor can they leverage it to improve other AI systems. This distinction matters. In the traditional open-source world, the ability to fork, remix, and expand upon existing code is non-negotiable. By contrast, xAI's "community license" essentially allows for exploration, not extension. It mirrors the kind of "open-but-not-really" releases that have become common in AI, an industry where competitive advantage often depends on keeping training data and fine-tuning techniques proprietary. Also read: Grok 2.5 is no longer xAI's flagship model. That title belongs to Grok 4, released earlier this year with improved reasoning, longer context handling, and more competitive benchmarks against GPT-4-class systems. By open-sourcing Grok 2.5, xAI walks a careful line: signaling transparency without undermining its current commercial offering. Musk has hinted that Grok 3 may itself be released under a similar model within six months, suggesting a rolling cycle where "last year's best" becomes the community release. It's a clever strategy that allows xAI to claim the mantle of openness while keeping its competitive edge intact. Part of the motivation may also be reputational. Grok has been at the center of controversies since its debut. The chatbot has been documented producing antisemitic responses, amplifying conspiracy theories, and even generating a bizarre "MechaHitler" response that went viral earlier this year. Critics seized on these failures as evidence of lax safety protocols at xAI. In response, the company took the unusual step of publishing Grok's system prompts on GitHub, offering outsiders a peek into its alignment strategy. Open-sourcing Grok 2.5 fits into that same pattern: a move to blunt criticism by allowing independent researchers to audit the system. In Musk's framing, it also advances the idea that AI models should not be locked away by a handful of corporations - a theme he has used to position xAI against rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic. Also read: Meet GPT-OSS: OpenAI's 20B and 120B parameter open-weight open-source AI models The release throws into relief the different ways leading AI companies are interpreting "open source." For developers and researchers, this patchwork landscape means "open source" in AI no longer has a single, universal meaning. Instead, it's become a spectrum - from truly open community projects like Hugging Face's BLOOM, to corporate-controlled "open weights" like Grok 2.5. Despite the restrictions, Grok 2.5's release has value. Researchers can probe it for bias, hallucination patterns, or vulnerabilities. Developers with sufficient hardware can experiment with deployment scenarios, particularly for specialized tasks that don't require retraining. And educators can use it as a case study for how state-of-the-art models are architected and deployed. More broadly, the release reflects the uneasy balance between competitive secrecy and public accountability in AI. On one hand, companies argue that keeping full openness at bay is necessary for safety and commercial survival. On the other, critics point out that without real transparency, claims about model safety, fairness, and reliability cannot be meaningfully verified. Musk has suggested that Grok 3 will follow Grok 2.5 onto Hugging Face within six months, though likely under the same restrictions. If that timeline holds, xAI could establish a precedent of "delayed openness," where yesterday's cutting-edge becomes tomorrow's controlled open-source project. For the AI community, that rhythm might be enough to fuel meaningful research and experimentation. For Musk, it positions xAI as a company that, unlike OpenAI, still makes its work at least partially available. And for critics, it sets up the next debate: is "open weights with strings attached" really open at all? In the end, Grok 2.5 going public is a milestone, but also a mirror: it reflects the compromises, contradictions, and competitive pressures shaping today's AI industry. Openness, in Musk's hands, is less a philosophy than a strategy, one that reveals just enough to win credibility, while keeping the crown jewels firmly under lock and key.