Telegram, Musk-owned xAI partner to distribute Grok to messaging app's users

Elon Musk's AI startup xAI will pay Telegram $300 million to deploy its Grok chatbot on the messaging app, aiming to tap the platform's more than one billion users and sharpen its competitive edge in the booming artificial intelligence market, Reuters reported. 

Under the one-year deal, xAI will also give Telegram half of any subscription sales made through the messaging app, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on Wednesday in a post on X, adding that the $300 million will be paid in cash and stock.

Durov said xAI will only access data that Telegram users explicitly share with Grok through direct interactions.

The deal could provide xAI, which acquired X earlier this year, with valuable data to train and develop its AI models.

With many open-source repositories exhausted, AI companies face increasing challenges in sourcing quality data, prompting firms such as Meta Platforms to utilise public interactions with AI for model training.

According to its privacy policy, X uses public posts from users to train its AI models. It was not immediately clear if xAI would utilise data from Telegram similarly.

XAI, which has entered several tie-ups this year to bolster its position in both AI infrastructure and financial services, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.