xAI’s Dot.com Redirect to Grok Sparks Speculation of a Jab at OpenAI’s Dots
By James Dargan · · 1 min read
OpenAI’s new always-on AI agent, Dots, has drawn an unexpected twist online after users discovered that the domain dot.com belongs to Elon Musk’s xAI and redirects to the download page for its Grok chatbot app.
Musk, an OpenAI co-founder who later left, built competitor Grok and unsuccessfully sued the company. According to the Whois domain registry, dot.com was transferred in July, prompting a widely shared theory that Musk or his team learned of OpenAI’s product name in advance and bought the domain as a prank.
The redirect was first spotted by anonymous X user and xAI watcher @birdabo, whose post quickly went viral. TechCrunch said it had contacted xAI for comment.
There may be an ordinary explanation. xAI could have acquired dot.com to capture mistyped searches for “bot.” However, the company does not own bot.com itself or other obvious variations such as vot.com, which is listed for sale, adding fuel to the speculation.
The closer match, dots.com, currently belongs to a long-defunct company. Securing that domain as well would take any potential rivalry-driven stunt a step further.
