Even the ugliest feuds with President Donald Trump seem to end with \u201cthe Art of the Deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. government just inked a deal to put Elon Musk\u2019s Grok AI inside federal agencies for 42 cents per agency\u2014a bargain that the government called<\/a> \u201cunique\u201d and could reset Musk\u2019s rocky relationship with Trump and scramble the fight over which models dominate Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s the latest in a string of deals that the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the agency responsible for technology procurement, has made with the top AI companies \u2013 \u00a0Alphabet\u2019s Google; the ChatGPT maker, OpenAI; and Anthropic \u2014 as part of its new initiative, the OneGov agreement. Each of these deals are short-term \u2013 to prevent one model dominating, the GSA said \u2013 but Grok\u2019s is the longest, with an 18- month contract. On Sept. 22, the GSA announced<\/a> that it would be working with Meta<\/a> to get free access to its Llama models, while OpenAI and Anthropic agreed to provide their models for $1, and Google charged 47 cents.\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk, according to<\/a> the Wall Street Journal, picked 42 cents as a reference to the Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy, a science fiction novel.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to calculate how much money Musk is saving the government by offering the model at only 42 cents a pop. xAI\u2019s Grok 4 Fast is priced per output, and generally agencies might be on the hook for hefty API licencing fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe really like the notion of having strong competition and market tension between these models and these companies,\u201d Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. \u201cWhen someone goes and updates their model with a cool feature, that only encourages the others to go do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk-Trump relationship\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The deal could be a sign that the turbulent Musk-Trump relationship<\/a> is in a period of thawing.\u00a0 After breaking with Trump in June over tariffs and spending \u2014 even calling for his impeachment \u2014 Musk has become one of the president\u2019s most vocal critics. However, on Sunday, the two were spotted side by side at Charlie Kirk\u2019s memorial in Arizona, shaking hands and chatting<\/a> for the first time since their public split.<\/p>\n Now Musk is praising Trump\u2019s leadership in official press releases, saying xAI looks forward to \u201crapidly deploying AI throughout the government.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0Whether this is a fragile truce or a genuine thaw, the timing is striking: Musk is still struggling to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic in the private market<\/a>, but inside Washington, he just secured a coveted stamp of approval.<\/p>\n \u201cMechaHitler\u201d in the government?<\/strong><\/p>\n Musk\u2019s deal with Washington comes on the heels of embarrassing stumbles for Grok itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n The chatbot has been caught spouting antisemitic comments, at one point dubbing itself <\/a>\u201cMechaHitler,\u201d and even hurling slurs<\/a> at Poland\u2019s prime minister. xAI scrubbed the posts and promised tighter safeguards, framing the missteps as part of the messy process of training frontier AI.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,\u201d the company said<\/a> at the time, adding that its vast user base helps flag blind spots so the model can be retrained quickly.<\/p>\n More than 30 advocacy groups urged the Office of Management and Budget to keep the model out of federal systems, and several Democratic lawmakers pressed the GSA on its decision, according to news site Fedscoop<\/a>. A GSA spokesperson has stressed the agency is weighing all vendors \u201cequally\u201d and that no single deal amounts to a final endorsement.\u00a0<\/p>\n