Elon Musk Reacts To OpenAI Shutting Down Sora, Says Grok Imagine Is No 'Money Loser'

Elon Musk weighed in on the abrupt shutdown of OpenAI's Sora, telling his followers on X that his own company's video tool, Grok Imagine, is profitable rather than a drain on resources.

The response came in reply to a post suggesting that OpenAI pulled the plug on Sora after losing roughly £780,000 (≈ US$1 million) per day, a claim that has been widely reported by media outlets analysing OpenAI's strategic retreat from consumer video tools.

In the exchange, Musk was reacting not to a competitor's announcement, but to a commentary about the 'vision for AI video generation' that someone had shared online, questioning why Musk continues pushing Grok Imagine even as others withdraw from the space.

In his reply, Musk reframed the conversation around the future of artificial intelligence, arguing that video data is critical for achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). He also claimed, succinctly, that xAI's video tool is 'positive gross margin' and 'not a money loser,' a direct contrast with the narrative around Sora's financial challenges.

Why OpenAI Pulled Out of Sora

OpenAI's Sora was launched in December 2024 as a standalone text‑to‑video generation model designed to let users create short AI videos from simple prompts. It quickly rose in popularity, topping app charts and amassing millions of downloads.

However, just under six months after its release, OpenAI announced that it would be shutting down the Sora app by 26 April 2026 and discontinuing its developer API by September of the same year.

The reasons behind this strategic withdrawal are multi‑layered and, in public statements and reporting, primarily economic. Investigations by outlets including have suggested that Sora's operating costs were extremely high. It reportedly lost around £780,000 (≈ US$1 million) per day, while user engagement sharply decreased from its initial launch surge, with active users dropping by roughly half.

That combination of high compute demands and declining adoption made it hard for OpenAI to justify continuing to operate the platform at scale as the company prepares for a potential initial public offering (IPO) and seeks more stable revenue streams.

A failed partnership with The Walt Disney Company, which reportedly had plans to invest up to billion in licensing characters for Sora, also collapsed amid the shutdown.

Some believe Sora didn't shut down because people stopped caring, but because it was simply too expensive to keep alive. With AI video eating up huge amounts of computing power, and OpenAI under pressure to look more business-focused, the shutdown looked less like a creative decision and more like a financial one.

Musk's Claim on xAI's Video Revenue

Musk asserted that xAI's Grok Imagine. the video and image generation feature within the Grok ecosystem, is positive on gross margin. However, independent revenue figures for the tool are not publicly disclosed by xAI.

Reports suggest xAI has at least started turning AI video into a real business, rather than just a flashy experiment. Some pricing estimates show users may be paying around £2.30 to £3.10 (about $3 to $4) per minute for certain video features, which gives one of the first real hints at how the company could be making money from the tool.

Still, xAI has not publicly shared full revenue or profit figures, so the bigger financial picture remains unclear.

Grok Imagine has also been picking up attention in AI rankings, where it has reportedly performed better than some rival video tools, including products linked to Google and OpenAI's now-closed Sora. But strong performance does not automatically mean huge profits. AI video is expensive to run, and the costs of computing power, training and infrastructure can pile up quickly.

That is why Musk's phrase 'positive gross margin' matters. In simple terms, he appears to mean the tool is bringing in more money than it costs to operate directly. That does not necessarily mean it is fully profitable once wider expenses such as research, engineering and long-term AI development are included.