'OpenAI Is Coke, Grok Is RC Cola': Experts Slam Elon Musk's AI Adoption Rates

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok is losing ground in the AI race, as new data from the US in 2026 shows its adoption trailing far behind rivals, while its parent company SpaceX rents out major computing capacity to competitor Anthropic at a data centre near Memphis, Tennessee.

Grok launched in late 2023 as Musk's answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude, with the billionaire pitching it as 'maximally truth-seeking' and less 'woke' than other models.

It was tightly woven into X, his rebranded Twitter platform, and bolstered by headline-grabbing features including a sexualised AI companion and tools for generating provocative content. Those decisions briefly pushed Grok into the spotlight, but the latest figures suggest the surge has not translated into lasting loyalty among either consumers or businesses.

Grok Adoption Stalls As Rivals Pull Away

The slowdown is stark in the numbers. According to analysis firm AppMagic, downloads of Grok's app fell to about 8.3 million in April, a steep decline from a peak of more than 20 million in January. In other words, in less than four months, more than half of that download momentum appears to have evaporated.

A separate survey paints an even harsher picture of paid adoption. Recon Analytics questioned more than 260,000 US consumers and workers who use AI.

In the second quarter of 2026, just 0.174% of respondents said they paid for Grok, almost unchanged from 0.173% a year earlier. By contrast, more than 6% of respondents reported paying for ChatGPT, underlining a gulf in willingness to spend money on Musk's model.

Ben Pouladian, a Los Angeles-based engineer and tech investor, summed up Grok's position with a comparison that will sting Musk loyalists. 'OpenAI is Coke, Anthropic is Pepsi, and Grok is RC Cola,' he said. 'I never really saw people drinking it.'

Pouladian is not a reflexive Musk critic. He drives a Tesla, is active on X and downloaded Grok soon after launch. Yet, like many tech-savvy users, he drifted back to the better-known players. He now prefers Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT and, occasionally, Google's Gemini, saying those systems simply feel more capable.

Musk and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment, and there is little sign that he is trying to portray Grok as a leader. In court in late April, during his lawsuit against OpenAI, Musk played down the significance of his AI venture xAI, which he has folded into SpaceX.

Under oath, he described xAI as 'pretty small,' 'very small', and 'the smallest of the AI companies,' an assessment that hardly suggests a champion-in-waiting.

SpaceX Compute Deal Puts Grok In An Awkward Light

The strategic pressure around Grok is sharpened by SpaceX's decision to rent out a vast chunk of computing capacity to Anthropic.

The agreement, signed in early May, gives Anthropic access to all the computing power at the Colossus 1 data centre near Memphis, one of Musk's key AI facilities.

In practical terms, that means a company Musk has recently described as 'misanthropic and evil' is now paying him to train and run its Claude models on his hardware.

Analysts argue it signals a shift in priorities. Rather than reserving Colossus purely for his own AI ambitions, Musk appears to be turning it into an external platform for other labs in exchange for cash.

Arnal Dayaratna, vice president of software development at research firm IDC, said the move shows Musk beginning to reposition Colossus as a revenue-generating asset for major AI companies, rather than a closed shop for Grok and internal model development.

With pressure mounting to show profit across his empire, and with a SpaceX initial public offering expected this year, the prospect of 'a few billion dollars a year' from Anthropic, as analysts estimate, is not a trivial incentive.

If Grok were winning the arms race, leasing out that much compute might look like savvy portfolio management. Given its current trajectory, it looks more like Musk is choosing to monetise his AI infrastructure even if that strengthens a direct competitor.

Grok's Racy Features And Weak Enterprise Appeal

Musk spent much of the summer of 2025 at his AI startup trying to catch up with OpenAI and Anthropic. Former employees said he personally oversaw the design of a sexually charged chatbot and settings that allowed users to generate suggestive, even explicit, content as a way of spurring engagement.

It worked in one sense. Grok's record download month in January followed an update enabling users to virtually undress people in photos. The feature was rapidly abused, including on images of minors, prompting scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers.

The company subsequently limited access to it. The download spike that followed now looks less like genuine enthusiasm and more like a rush towards a controversial novelty that could not be sustained legally or reputationally.

On the front that matters most to long-term revenue, Grok is similarly stuck in the slow lane. Coding assistants have become the hottest battleground between major AI labs, with corporate demand for software development tools driving rapid growth. Yet Grok, according to Enterprise Technology Research (ETR), is 'barely growing' inside enterprise organisations.

ETR surveyed around 500 people about AI use in their companies. In March, 48% said their firm was using and planned to keep using Anthropic's Claude, more than double the 21% who said the same a year earlier.

Forty per cent said their company was committed to Google's Gemini, up from 27%. Grok did grow, but from a very low base: 7% of respondents said their company was using and planned to keep using it, up from 4%.

The numbers suggest that while Grok is not ignored, it is not close to being a default choice for businesses either. In a sector where network effects and developer mindshare can calcify quickly, that is a precarious place to be.

Some in the industry still caution against writing Musk out of the story. Guillermo Rauch, chief executive of Vercel, a hosting company for AI agents, said he is optimistic that Musk's recent reorganisation of his AI unit will make it more competitive. 'Once Elon focuses, which is what is happening right now, we see him perform very very well,' Rauch said.

Rauch noted that developers are fickle and often switch models quickly. If a future version of Grok outperforms rivals on speed, cost or capability, he believes engineers could migrate en masse.