Tech

SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5, which Elon describes as an ‘Opus-class model’

Published

4 hours ago

July 8, 2026

SpaceXAI has released its latest model, Grok 4.5 — the first since the company went public several weeks ago.

In a blog post published Wednesday, SpaceXAI characterized its new release as a workhorse that can tackle all of the typical tasks that the AI industry has sought to automate: coding and app-building, office and clerical work, research, writing, and other forms of routine knowledge work.

Grok can supposedly do all this for less spend, too, as SpaceXAI says that its model has “twice greater token efficiency” than other leading models. If it carries through to real-world use cases, that efficiency would be a big advantage for SpaceXAI, since the cost of tokens has been a growing concern for AI consumers.

The company released benchmark metrics Wednesday that appeared to show Grok’s competitiveness with other top models from SpaceXAI competitors, although just short of best-in-class:

In a post on his social media platform X (which is a subsidiary of SpaceXAI), founder Elon Musk compared the model to Opus, Anthropic LLM designed for intensive and complex tasks.

“Based on strong positive feedback from customers in our beta test program, @SpaceXAI will make Grok 4.5 available to the public tomorrow. It is an Opus-class model, but faster, more token-efficient and lower cost,” wrote Musk in a post on X.

Musk later added: “Our internal assessment is that Grok 4.5 is roughly comparable to Opus 4.7, but much faster. The combination of capability, faster speed and lower cost is what makes it competitive.”

SpaceXAI says that its new model costs $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens. That’s quite competitive, if Grok’s capabilities match SpaceXAI’s rhetoric.

Opus 4.7, by comparison, costs $5 per million input tokens, and $25 per million output tokens. OpenAI has tiered costs for different model versions: Sol, its most expensive, costs $5 for input tokens and $30 for output, while its least expensive, Luna, costs $1 for input and $6 for output.

It’s a big week for AI model releases. OpenAI is planning to release GPT 5.6, its latest, most powerful model, on Thursday. The release of that model had previously been limited by the Trump administration, due to concerns about its security implications. OpenAI has called it its “strongest model yet.”

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Tech

Despite ‘misgivings,’ judge approves Elon Musk’s $1.5 million SEC settlement

Published

36 minutes ago

July 8, 2026

qasimgillani

A judge has approved a $1.5 million penalty levied against Elon Musk that will settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit despite having “significant misgivings” about it.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan noted that her court would accept the settlement, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, which cited her court opinion.

Sooknanan’s approval settles a lawsuit filed by the SEC against Musk in early 2025 over how the billionaire handled his takeover of the social network platform formerly known as Twitter. The lawsuit, which was filed only days before Donald Trump took office, revolved around Musk’s failure to disclose to public investors, in a timely manner, his growing stake in the company in 2022.

The fact that Musk did not initially disclose his stake “ultimately saved him a whopping $150 million,” the SEC argued.

In May, Musk reached a settlement with the SEC that stipulated a trust in Musk’s name would be responsible for paying a $1.5 million penalty without admitting wrongdoing.

Sooknanan previously questioned whether Musk was receiving “special treatment” from the Trump administration. Musk previously helped to bankroll Trump’s campaign during the 2024 presidential race.

In her opinion, Sooknanan noted that her court was “limited to evaluating whether the proposed consent judgment meets minimum standards of fairness and reasonableness, or whether it instead “make[s] a mockery of judicial power.”

“Although the Court has significant misgivings about the settlement reached in this case, it cannot say that
the settlement meets that high threshold,” Sooknanan wrote.

Tech

Lovable reportedly in talks to double its valuation to $13.2B

Published

1 hour ago

July 8, 2026

qasimgillani

Lovable, a Swedish vibe-coding startup, is in talks to raise $300 million at a valuation of $13.2 billion — exactly double the$6.6 billion valuation the company achieved last December, Sifted reported. Menlo Ventures, a firm that announced its latest $3 billion fund last month, is expected to lead the round, according to the report.

The less-than-three-year-old startup hit $500 million in annualized revenue run rate in June.

Lovable’s users include founders, individual designers, and salespeople building websites and e-commerce storefronts. The company also sells its vibe-coding tool to large enterprises, including Workday, Asana, and Nvidia.

Vibe coding, which allows users to build software simply by describing it, is by far the most popular and lucrative use case for AI. Other high-profile vibe-coding startups include Replit, valued at $9 billion in March, and Factory, a startup that helps enterprises develop AI agents, which raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation in April. Meanwhile, Cursor, which offers vibe coding for developers, was acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion last month.