Elon Musk's xAI is paying the messaging platform Telegram a cool $300 million to introduce the chatbot Grok to its users. The terms of the deal are extremely favorable to Telegram, as the $300 million only covers a single year and xAI will evenly split any subscription sales to Grok Premium and Premium+ with the messaging platform. Telegram will be paid in both cash and equity.
Telegram and xAI have agreed to a 1-year partnership to distribute Grok to Telegram’s billion+ users and integrate it into its apps. Telegram will receive $300M in cash and equity from xAI, plus 50% of revenue from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram. Together, we win! ❤️📈🏆 pic.twitter.com/JxTNQr4MTy
— Pavel Durov (@durov) May 28, 2025
This will introduce Grok to gobs of new people, as Telegram boasts over one billion monthly users. X, on the other hand, handles half that amount. X leverages public posts from users to train Grok, though not in the EU, and it remains to be seen if the deal includes language to do the same thing with Telegram. The platform includes a feature called Channels that's sort of like a social media network, which could house data that's ripe for the picking.
Engadget reached out to Telegram to ask about Grok and training data and will update this post if we hear back. Both companies have remained mum on this question to other publications, like Reuters. It's worth noting that AI companies are running out of easily accessible data troves.
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