Musk admits xAI used OpenAI models to train Grok
elon musk testified in a california federal court on thursday that xai used distillation techniques on openai models to train grok. he asserted this practice is common among ai companies. the trial concerns musk's lawsuit alleging openai breached its nonprofit mission.
During Thursday's testimony in a California federal court, Elon Musk confirmed that xAI used outputs from OpenAI models to train its own Grok system. When asked if xAI utilized distillation—querying a model to generate training data for another—Musk replied, 'Partly,' and characterized the practice as standard within the AI industry. This admission emerged from Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, which alleges the company abandoned its founding nonprofit mission by transitioning to a for-profit structure. Musk also ranked current AI providers, placing Anthropic first, followed by OpenAI, Google, and Chinese open-source models, while describing xAI as a much smaller entity.