xAI
xAI founder Elon Musk praises Anthropic Claude’s coding capabilities
In a recent post on X, Elon Musk, the founder of xAI, gave credit to rival company Anthropic for its strong performance in coding tasks. Musk reacted to Anthropic’s latest model, Claude Opus 4.5, which led in key tests like agentic coding, where it scored 80% success, outperforming models from OpenAI and Google.
He noted that while xAI’s own AI, Grok, may not yet match in programming tasks, it aims to shine in other fields. Musk also pointed to a recent cutoff of xAI’s access to Claude models as a key push for his team’s work, calling it “not good for their karma.”
This statement comes amid growing friction between the two AI firms. Just last week, Anthropic blocked xAI developers from using Claude through Cursor, a popular coding tool. According to reports, xAI staff had been relying on Claude to speed up their internal projects. Anthropic’s terms of service clearly ban using its models to build or train competing systems, which xAI appeared to violate.
In an internal email, xAI co-founder Tony Wu told employees about the change, describing it as a new policy applied to all major rivals. He said it might slow coding work short-term, but could motivate faster improvements to its own tools.
Anthropic has taken similar steps before, such as revoking access for OpenAI ahead of its GPT-5 release last year. These actions show how companies are guarding their tech to stay ahead in the AI race.
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI leaders, Anthropic focuses on productive AI model development and has gained praise for Claude’s coding skills.
Its models excel in tasks like software engineering benchmarks, making them a go-to for developers. On the other hand, xAI, launched by Musk in 2023, pushes Grok as a bold, truth-seeking AI.
This rivalry highlights the competitive nature of AI innovation. Access restrictions like this can limit collaboration but often spark progress. Musk’s post suggests xAI will use the setback as fuel, hinting at strong updates for Grok soon, especially in coding.
As AI firms battle for dominance, users benefit from better tools, though it raises questions about open access in the industry.
