The July 10 order followed a July 6 policy limiting third-party AI tool spending to $200 a week per employee, while exempting xAI’s Grok and Composer.
Elon Musk has told Tesla employees to use Grok 4.5 for AI-related work, deepening the carmaker’s use of xAI products inside daily operations. The July 10 directive came days after Tesla introduced a new policy capping spending on third-party AI tools at $200 per week per employee from July 6, while exempting xAI’s Grok and Composer from that limit. Musk has said Grok 4.5 is more cost-effective than rival models, and the model is in private beta at Tesla and SpaceX, where he said it is competitive on engineering tasks. The move comes as internal reports indicate Tesla employees had been leaning toward Anthropic’s Claude for AI workflows. It also follows Tesla’s $2 billion stake in xAI in January, tightening financial and operational links between the companies. Beyond internal use, Tesla is working to embed Grok in its vehicles through a “Hey Grok” voice assistant as part of software updates planned across 2025 and 2026, and plans to connect Grok with its Full Self-Driving system through voice controls expected in fall 2026. The broader push is likely to intensify governance concerns on Wall Street, where investors have already questioned potential conflicts of interest tied to Musk steering Tesla resources toward a company he separately owns and controls.