Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#1

Post by zof3 » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

All the other big name model providers have been pushing stuff out the door steadily; what’s happened to xAI? Their models were never the best but now they are getting wiped on the floor — for coding work, at least.

Is anyone here actively using a Grok model?

The SpaceX merger just happened, is that part of why they haven’t released anything in the last 5 months?

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#2

Post by nopurpose » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

Not a user, but in what sense they are getting wiped on the flor? 4th place on llmarena looks solid: https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmarena-ai/arena-leaderboard

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#3

Post by uyzstvqs » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

Grok 4.20 is currently in beta and ranking #4 on arena.ai for text generation, only beaten by Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.1 Pro. Grok 4.1 Thinking is in #9, still a top model. Grok Imagine is consistently in the top 10 for image and video generation, ranking #1 for Image-to-Video.

If you meant code generation, Grok has never really been a top model for that purpose. Claude remains the undefeated king there.

https://arena.ai/leaderboard

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#4

Post by oren1531 » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

Grok's value was never really about model quality - it was the only model with real-time access to what's actually being said on X. And it's less filtered than the others, which matters for certain topics where ChatGPT/Claude will just refuse or hedge. Those are two genuinely unique things. But they're sitting on both advantages without shipping anything meaningful, and competitors will find workarounds eventually. The SpaceX merger adding organizational noise right now seems like the worst possible timing.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#5

Post by muzani » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

Grok was the best every now and then but they committed the capital crime of trying to charge 50% more than the competitors who were only 20% or so worse.

There's kind of this weird thing in Silicon Valley where CEOs and investors keep telling people to raise prices! The definition of a moat is you can raise prices!!!

But these folks usually don't have the experience of being broke or saving for retirement and such. They don't understand that an extra $10/month is a heck lot of money. And so nobody really wants to try it and it has a dampening effect on the virality.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#6

Post by ej31 » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

5 months is nothing. we launched a rocket twice in that time ngl

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#7

Post by downbad_ » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 3:06 PM UTC

I find Grok to be better than OpenAI (ChatGPT)

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#8

Post by mounram » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

downbad_ wrote: post #7

I find Grok to be better than OpenAI (ChatGPT)

I have the complete opposite experience

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#9

Post by openenough » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 10:53 PM UTC

oren1531 wrote: post #4

Grok's value was never really about model quality - it was the only model with real-time access to what's actually being said on X. And it's less filtered than the others, which matters for certain topics where ChatGPT/Claude will just refuse or hedge. Those are two genuinely unique things. But they're sitting on both advantages without shipping anything meaningful, and competitors will find workarounds eventually. T…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to xAI?

#10

Post by IAmGraydon » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC

I’m shocked that a tech company run by a deeply disturbed conman billionaire who is trying to warp the historical record with an ideologically biased bot can’t attract actual talent. Serious people want nothing to do with this weirdo.