Elon Musk—Musk directed xAI to open-source Grok AI models, though critics noted incomplete openness
In March 2024, xAI released Grok-1 model weights under the Apache 2.0 license, and in August 2025 open-sourced Grok 2.5, with a promise to open-source Grok 3 within six months. Musk positioned this as fulfilling his commitment to open AI development, consistent with his earlier criticism of OpenAI for becoming closed-source. However, AI experts including Bruce Perens (creator of the Open Source Definition) noted that xAI released only model weights, not the training data or training process, making the 'open source' label disputed.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Oversight | +toward | secondary | +0.50 |
| Open Source | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.375 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.50)
Evidence (1 signal)
Euronews reported Grok not truly 'open source' as Musk claimed - only weights released
Euronews reported that despite Musk's claims, xAI's Grok release did not meet the accepted definition of open source according to Bruce Perens, creator of the Open Source Definition. xAI released model weights under Apache 2.0 but not the training data or training process. Musk announced open-sourcing Grok 2.5 in August 2025 and promised Grok 3 open-source within six months.