Grok and Telegram: Why Elon Musk and Pavel Durov Parted Ways Before Starting

Remember that May day last year, when news feeds exploded with headlines about an alliance between two of the most headstrong titans of the industry? Pavel Durov officially confirmed that Telegram had entered into a partnership with Elon Musk's xAI. The plan sounded ambitious: to integrate Grok—bold and unapologetic—directly into the messenger's interface.

It seemed like a perfect match. On one side, Telegram with its massive audience and reputation as a bastion of free speech; on the other, Grok, which promised to answer questions that "broke" the censored models from Google and OpenAI. But a year passed, and there wasn't even a hint of Musk's AI in the app.

The silence dragged on so long that it became clear: something went wrong.

An investigation by colleagues at "Durov's Code" confirms the worst fears of optimists—the project is effectively dead. Why did this happen now, when the AI arms race has reached its peak? To understand this, we need to look at how the landscape has changed over the past twelve months.

In May 2023, Grok seemed like a powerful trump card that could instantly transform Telegram into a super-app. However, during this time, Elon Musk turned xAI into a closed ecosystem, tightly bound to his own platform X (formerly Twitter). Making Grok available in Telegram would mean handing a powerful tool for audience retention to a competitor, and Musk is not the type to engage in charity at the expense of his own assets.

The technical side of the question also raises many questions. Integrating a third-party LLM of such scale requires not only colossal computing power, but also a clear understanding of who pays for the tokens. Given Grok's appetite and the number of active Telegram users, API usage bills could have punched a hole even in Durov's budget. Moreover, Pavel has always obsessively guarded his platform's independence. Letting Grok "under the hood" of the messenger would mean giving xAI access to certain patterns of user behavior, something Durov would hardly agree to even for the sake of friendship with Elon.

We shouldn't forget external pressure either. Apple and Google are extremely wary of unmoderated AI content. If Grok in its X version somehow passes the stores' filters, its appearance in Telegram could provoke a new wave of complaints from the censors in Cupertino. Durov, who regularly fights for the messenger's right to exist in the App Store, certainly doesn't need extra problems with "wrong" neural network answers right now. It's simpler and safer to develop your own, more controlled solutions.

What do we have in the end? Telegram went its own way. We're already seeing the implementation of audio message transcription features, AI tools for business accounts, and an updated search that will reportedly soon get its own "smart" algorithms. Pavel Durov, as always, decided to build his fortress alone, not relying on the volatile moods of partners, even if those partners are launching rockets into space. Elon Musk, for his part, focused on turning X into an app "for everything," where Grok plays a central role. The roads parted, and hopes for a united front against Silicon Valley corporations have definitively melted away.

The bottom line: Telegram will have to catch up with Meta and WhatsApp in the field of AI on its own, which could slow the introduction of truly breakthrough features. Will the absence of Grok be a critical loss for the messenger, or will Durov once again outsmart everyone by creating something more efficient within his ecosystem?