xAI has made its artificial intelligence model Grok 2.5 open source by sharing it on the Hugging Face platform. Elon Musk wrote about this on his X account: “Our best model last year, Grok 2.5, is now open source.” He also added that the next version, Grok 3, will be made open source in about six months.
The open source principle is one of the key factors that accelerates development in the tech world. This means that the company makes the model’s weights—the main parameters that determine how the model works—accessible to everyone. As a result, other developers and researchers can freely use, modify, and further improve the model. This enables the creation of new programs and faster progress in artificial intelligence.
However, AI engineer Tim Kellogg notes that the license chosen for Grok contains “custom terms with some anti-competitive clauses.” In other words, while Grok 2.5 is shared as open source, it is not completely unrestricted. People can study and test the model, but they are not allowed to use it for competitive purposes or include it in commercial products.
The Grok model caused considerable controversy after being deployed on the X platform, as it sometimes produced dangerous or misleading statements.
Currently, Musk presents the latest version, Grok 4, as a “truth-seeking AI.” However, observations suggest that when answering difficult or controversial questions, the model often refers to Musk’s posts on X first. This raises questions about whether Grok is truly neutral or influenced by Musk’s viewpoints.
