• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

Despite a wave of antisemitic responses and the launch of controversial NFSW AI companions, Grok 4 -- xAI’s latest chatbot, which is integrated into the social-media platform X -- is generating major revenue for the company.

According to recent data from app intelligence platform Appfigures, Grok 4’s gross revenue on iOS has increased by 325% within two days of its initial release on July 9, bringing in $419,000 on July 11.

Daily revenue totals fluctuated over the next few days, until settling around $310,000 on July 14. 

Daily downloads of Grok’s iOS app also increased by 279% -- to 197,000 -- in the middle of this month, up from only 52,000 downloads prior to the launch of Grok 4.  

Unlike previous models, the newest version of Grok is also attracting significant subscription revenue, as Grok 4 is available to consumers via a standard subscription for $30 per month, or a “Super Heavy” plan for $300 per month – the most expensive AI chatbot plan on the market, compared to other chatbots released by Google, Anthropic, or OpenAI. 

xAI says Grok 4 has outperformed Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI’s o3 models on tests such as Humanity’s Last Exam -- an industry test designed to measure an AI’s ability to answer thousands of crowdsourced questions across various subjects. 

Notably, Grok 4’s controversial and antisemitic responses to consumers on X -- xAI’s social media platform -- did not negatively affect the AI company’s revenue boost or impact its partnerships with the U.S. government.

On July 16, xAI issued a statement claiming that Grok 4 had been updated after naming itself “MechaHitler” and aligning itself with owner Elon Musk’s publicly shared opinions on X. 

Furthermore, while the recent launch of Grok-powered AI companions raises concerns over their impact on younger users and the epidemic of social isolation among people, xAI is releasing new companion characters and will potentially expand the feature beyond premium subscription holders, which could further impact the company’s revenue and position in the AI race.