Startup Founder Claims Elon Musk Is Stealing the Name ‘Grok’
1 min read
Summary
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) firm xAI is facing a potential trademark dispute over the name of its chatbot, Grok, with two other companies, chipmaker Groq and software provider Grokstream, and now a third firm, Bizly, has claimed it owns the rights to the name.
Musk chose the name Grok for his chatbot after a term used in Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land, meaning “to understand” in Martian.
Bizly had planned to launch its own AI-based events app called Grok, but after Musk announced his chatbot with the same name, its funding round fell apart, and now the company is on the verge of shutting down.
xAI’s trademark application with the US Patent and Trade Office has been suspended, with the agency arguing the name could be confused with those of the other two companies.
It is unlikely that all three companies will be able to use the same name, however, under US law, trademark regulations are primarily designed to protect consumers rather than companies.
