Year-long deal includes revenue split as Telegram eyes billion-user integration
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI will pay Telegram US$300 million to roll out its Grok chatbot across the messaging platform, under a one-year partnership announced this week by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.
The agreement includes both cash and equity and allows Telegram to retain 50% of subscription revenue from Grok services sold via the app. Durov described the deal as one that “strengthens Telegram’s financial position,” while promising users access to “the best AI technology on the market” by summer.
Telegram plans deep integration of Grok into its billion-user platform, including features such as pinned chat access, summarisation of messages and documents, DM polishing, image generation, and group moderation. Businesses will also be able to use Grok to manage discussions within the app.
The deal comes amid financial and legal pressure for Telegram. The company, headquartered in Dubai, is reportedly raising at least US$1.5bn in bonds this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. Durov himself is under investigation in France—where he holds citizenship—for allegedly enabling criminal activity via Telegram, and has been barred from leaving the country without authorisation. Telegram maintains that it complies with EU laws and said Durov “has nothing to hide.”
Grok’s integration marks xAI’s largest deployment yet. The chatbot—pitched by Musk as an uncensored alternative to models from OpenAI and Meta—has faced criticism for recent misinformation incidents, including rogue outputs referencing “white genocide” in South Africa. xAI attributed the errors to unauthorised code modifications and said it is implementing new safeguards.
The partnership also raises fresh questions about data use. While Grok is trained on public content from Musk’s social media platform X, neither xAI nor Telegram has confirmed whether Telegram user data will be leveraged for further training.
xAI, recently valued at US$80bn following its merger with X Corp, has raised over US$12bn and constructed a high-performance data centre dubbed Colossus. Still, analysts have questioned its commercial traction relative to more established rivals.
For now, Grok’s entry into Telegram opens the door to a vast user base—but whether the partnership extends beyond its initial year remains to be seen.
