Grok Bot users report quotas running out early; Musk says service costs are too high to sustain

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SpaceX CEO and world's richest person Elon Musk recently said that because the service cost of the company's AI assistant Grok Bot is too high, it cannot achieve "unlimited use." This highlights that as service demand rises, this AI business is facing financial pressure.

Musk posted on a social media platform, saying, "Relative to revenue, the service cost of Grok Bot is too high and unsustainable."

Musk's post was in response to users' complaints that "the weekly quota is being consumed much faster than usual." Previously, multiple Grok Bot subscribers reported that their usage quota had been consumed noticeably faster recently, and some users had exhausted their entire quota several days before the weekly quota reset.

One user posted, "Their Grok Bot usage quota has reached 100%, with 4 days still remaining until the next reset, whereas previously they usually would not use up the quota." The user then asked Musk whether the Grok Bot usage quota could be reset.

Grok Bot is an AI agent launched by SpaceX in August this year, which 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 $200-per-month plan. All tiers have usage limits that reset weekly. SpaceX and other AI agents such as Meta's Muse all adopt this approach to prevent users from incurring huge computing bills.

The above incident highlights one of the biggest questions in the AI revolution: whether user demand is sufficient to support corporate operations. At least in Musk's case, it turns out that demand is not the problem; cost is.

User demand goes without saying. According to previous media reports, its daily active users had increased for 16 consecutive days, setting the longest growth record since launch, with daily active users rising from less than 100,000 in early September to more than 600,000 on October 26. Previously, Musk also publicly stated on X that Grok Bot's user growth rate was faster than any product he had ever seen.

However, user demand is only one side of the AI market equation. Companies that produce complex and expensive models must generate revenue to offset their rising costs. The AI industry is still in its infancy and remains immature, and its economics show that even strong demand may not always support the AI tools it sells. This is especially true at current price levels—whether on the user side (low prices) or the enterprise computing side (high costs).

This is why the revenue problem is increasingly critical, and why Musk's admission is so important. The AI industry is facing various real-world constraints. But Grok Bot's "restrictive measures" make users and tech observers feel it is unfair and raise concerns about SpaceX's business.

"Two weeks ago, Grok Bot was still a powerful engine of SpaceXai revenue growth and achieved remarkable success. Now, it is unsustainable and has even begun to lose money (?)" former xAI employee Benjamin De Kraker posted on X.

Other commenters pointed out that a post Musk published a few days ago now seems quite ironic, saying that "with the arrival of the age of superintelligence, saving money for the distant future is meaningless."

X is flooded with complaints from Grok users: "Elon has gone back on his word again." Musk, in response to a comment, helplessly admitted: "Just out of reason."

(Source: Cailian Press) Middle of the article Embedded advertisement