Elon Musk pulls no punches with AI rivals as Grok 4.5 debuts

Elon Musk pulls no punches with AI rivals as Grok 4.5 debuts highlights the launch of Grok 4.5 by SpaceXAI, positioned as a model optimized for affordability and day-to-day use rather than a pure benchmark challenge. The update arrived on Wednesday, July 8, after SpaceXAI trained Grok 4.5 alongside Cursor, following SpaceX’s June agreement to acquire Anysphere in a $60 billion all-stock deal. SpaceXAI said training used tens of thousands of Nvidia GB300 GPUs, and Musk stated the new V9 foundation model runs at roughly 1.5 trillion parameters, about three times its predecessor. Developers received access on July 8 through Cursor, Grok Build, and the SpaceXAI developer console, with public availability following on July 9 and European availability expected in mid-July. The company said Grok Build and Cursor usage is free for a limited time. Benchmarks cited in the release show a 29% result on SWE Marathon, compared with higher scores for Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Fable 5 on SWE Bench Pro.