Elon Musk’s Grok has lost more than half its monthly downloads since January as Anthropic’s Claude widens its lead, with downloads at 8.3 million in April from a peak above 20 million

Grok posted a 14.43% month-over-month web traffic decline in April, the worst showing of any major AI sit. Claude led at 34.18% growth.

Grok’s January peak followed an update that let users virtually undress people in photos, drawing regulatory scrutiny over use on minors before xAI limited access.

“OpenAI is Coke, Anthropic is Pepsi and Grok is RC Cola,” tech investor Ben Pouladian told the Wall Street Journal. “I never really saw people drinking it.”

Musk has pivoted, turning Grok’s stalled growth into a SpaceX revenue line by leasing its full Memphis Colossus 1 supercomputer to Anthropic last week.

The All-In podcast dubbed the new cloud business “Elon Web Services,” with Altimeter Capital’s Brad Gerstner estimating it could add $4 to $5 billion in revenue at a 40 to 50 times multiple.

The Logic Behind The Pivot

In February, Musk called Anthropic “misanthropic and evil” on X.

Last week, after spending days with the team, he wrote that “no one set off my evil detector,” though he reserved the right to “reclaim the compute” if its AI “engages in actions that harm humanity.”

Pouladian called it: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and it’s also my compute partner.” That enemy is Sam Altman, whom Musk is currently suing in federal court.

The compute Musk built to beat him is now powering Anthropic’s bid to do it instead.

Anthropic and Musk had matching problems. Anthropic’s growing run rate is capped only by compute. Grok generates under $1 billion. Recent survey data shows 48% of companies plan to use Claude compared to a mere 7% for Grok.

Musk called xAI “the smallest of the AI companies” in court last month.

What The Traders See

Polymarket gives Anthropic 67% odds of holding the top AI model spot at the end of June. xAI sits at just 2%.

Separately, SpaceX traders give the IPO a 71% chance of clearing $2 trillion.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), the only Musk stock retail can buy until SpaceX trades, gets a fresh validation of the “Elon premium.”

Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch warned not to count Musk out of the AI race, “once Elon focuses… we see him perform very very well,” he said.

Image: Shutterstock