
Elon Musk’s AI Company xAI Launches API for Grok 3, Aims to Revolutionize AI Landscape
In a surprise move, Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has launched an Application Programming Interface (API) for its flagship model, Grok 3. This development is significant, as it marks the first time that the powerful AI model will be accessible to developers and businesses worldwide.
Grok 3 is an upgraded version of the previous models, capable of analyzing images and responding to questions with unprecedented accuracy. Its features have been touted by Musk himself, who has emphasized its ability to think outside the box and provide unfiltered answers on controversial topics.
The API offers two distinct versions of Grok 3: a full-fledged model called Grok 3, and a smaller, more efficient version known as Grok 3 mini. The former is priced at $3 per million tokens (~750,000 words) fed into the model, while the latter costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens.
Notably, the API’s pricing strategy is comparable to that of Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet, which also offers reasoning capabilities. However, some critics have pointed out that xAI’s offering may not be as competitive in terms of cost and performance when compared to Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro.
The launch of the API has raised eyebrows among AI enthusiasts and industry experts alike, particularly given the controversy surrounding Grok 3’s benchmark reporting and context window limitations. While Musk had touted the model’s ability to process up to 1 million tokens (equivalent to roughly 750,000 words) in a single go, the actual API limits are much lower at 131,072 tokens or approximately 97,500 words.
Despite these concerns, the launch of the Grok 3 API is expected to have far-reaching implications for the AI industry. With its ability to provide unfiltered and provocative responses, it has the potential to disrupt traditional social media platforms and online forums.
It remains to be seen how this new development will play out in the long run.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/09/elon-musks-ai-company-xai-launches-an-api-for-grok-3/