ITHome November 2 news: Elon Musk says the era of AI abundance will eventually arrive, but for now, Grok Bot cannot yet be used without limits.
The SpaceX CEO posted on the X platform last Sunday local time that some users reported their weekly allowance was being used up far faster than usual; in response, he said the AI agent's service cost was "far too high relative to revenue to be sustainable."
Grok Bot is an AI agent launched by SpaceX in August that relies on a virtual computer to complete various tasks such as shopping on behalf of users. The product is offered in multiple tiers, ranging from a free version to a $200 per month (IT Home note: approximately 1,332 RMB at the current exchange rate) plan.
All tiers come with usage limits that reset weekly. Other AI agents, such as SpaceX and Meta's Muse, also adopt this approach to prevent users from incurring huge compute bills.
Over the weekend, many Grok Bot users posted on X that their quota was being exhausted faster than expected, and the matter drew a response from Musk himself.
He replied to one user: "Is the price increase for upgrading to a higher-quota plan too steep?" In another reply, he mentioned that lowering quotas and informing users would "just be the rational thing to do."
In its financial report last month, SpaceX disclosed that Grok Bot has reached 800,000 paying weekly active users. At the time, Musk told investors that this AI agent is "the fastest-growing product I've ever seen in my life."
He also added: "I think Grok Bot might eventually eat the vast majority of our superintelligence compute."
SpaceX recently announced that it will bundle Grok Bot into a brand-new X subscription package priced at $8 per month (approximately 53.3 RMB at the current exchange rate). The plan also includes X Premium membership as well as Cursor, the AI coding tool acquired this year. Musk revealed in October that Grok Bot will not only call on 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 their business models will turn a profit remains full of questions.
Meta's Muse has been a huge hit, with its user base surpassing ten million, but the company has not disclosed its operating costs. Still, Zuckerberg admitted to investors last month that this agent "consumes enormous amounts of computing power" and is not yet profitable.
Musk admitted that Grok Bot is burning money, which drew ridicule from some X users — not long ago he said that the era of AI abundance is coming soon, and that saving money itself is "meaningless."