- Elon Musk's SpaceXAI launched Grok 4.5, its first major AI model since going public
- Grok 4.5 rivals Anthropics Opus 4.7 with faster speed and lower operating costs, according to Musk
- The model targets practical tasks like software development and office administration
Elon Musk's AI company, SpaceXAI, formerly known as xAI, has unveiled its latest artificial intelligence (AI) model, Grok 4.5. The launch marks the company's first major AI release since it went public last month, a move that made Musk the world's first trillionaire.
According to Musk, the new model is approaching the capabilities of Anthropic's flagship AI systems while offering faster performance and lower operating costs.
"Our internal assessment is that Grok 4.5 is roughly comparable to Opus 4.7, but much faster. The combination of capability, faster speed and lower cost is what makes it competitive," Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Opus 4.7 is Anthropic's advanced AI model positioned closely behind its flagship Fable 5 system, which is powered by the company's most capable AI architecture, Mythos. The model drew global attention recently after the US government banned it for a couple of weeks over security concerns. The model's advanced cybersecurity capabilities could identify vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure that had remained undiscovered for decades.
Musk said the company is prioritising practical performance over benchmark scores.
"We are closing the loop on real-world usefulness, not benchmarks. Hardcore engineers at Tesla & SpaceX find Grok 4.5 genuinely useful, which is what actually matters," he said.
In a blog post announcing the release, SpaceXAI said Grok 4.5 is designed to perform a broad range of knowledge-based tasks that businesses increasingly expect AI to handle. These include software development, application building, research, writing, office administration and other routine professional work.
Musk also said the company is making Grok 4.5 publicly available from Thursday following what he described as strong feedback from users who participated in its beta testing programme.
Pricing Takes Aim At Rivals
SpaceXAI has also positioned Grok 4.5 aggressively on pricing. The company said it will charge $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens, significantly below the rates charged by several competing frontier AI models.
For comparison, Anthropic prices Opus 4.7 at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. OpenAI's premium model, Sol, is priced at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens, while its lower-cost Luna model is priced at $1 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens.
Whether Grok 4.5 can consistently match the performance of leading models from Anthropic and OpenAI at those prices, however, will likely become clearer once developers begin testing it more extensively.
The launch comes during a packed week for the AI industry. OpenAI is also rolling out GPT-5.6, its latest flagship model, from Thursday. The release had reportedly been delayed because of security-related reviews by the Trump administration. OpenAI has described GPT-5.6 as its most capable AI model to date.
