As of July 12, Tesla cars started shipping with Grok, an AI chatbot created by Elon Musk’s AI venture, xAI, installed. The step is just another audacious combination of Musk’s business interests, with Tesla customers having Grok installed as part of the touchscreen interface in their vehicles, where they can pose questions or issue commands like ChatGPT or Gemini on OpenAI or Google.
Although the integration might appear as a value-added bonus, it also brings up the issue of privacy and data usage. Grok does not yet allow vehicle functions such as windows or climate systems to be controlled, but it does enable a broad set of productivity and entertainment applications during driving.
The privacy policy of xAI shows that the user interactions can be anonymized, yet it also gathers personal data, social media information, and user content, which is shared with contractors and related companies. The Tesla policy itself is more ambiguous about the use of Grok-generated data and has not been revised since the introduction of Grok.
Cars are already data-rich places. Tesla cars produce up to 25 GB of data every hour, such as video feeds, GPS, telemetry, etc. This information has been utilized in law enforcement investigations, and the border between anonymized and identifiable data is frequently gray.
Opponents such as Albert Cahn of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project caution that cars are becoming the most intensively surveilled aspect of our lives. Companies may argue that data is anonymized, but it is hard to remain anonymous when there is so much additional contextual information.
As Musk companies continue to overlap, Grok in Teslas is a larger tech trend—where innovation, convenience, and privacy come into conflict. With the increasing abilities of the vehicles and the proliferation of AI chatbots, consumers will need to consider the advantages of intelligent cars versus the increasing price of their personal information.