One of the new “companions,” or AI characters for users to interact with, is a sexualized blonde anime bot called “Ani."

In a familiar critique of corporate structures, Musk also weighed in on the ideal environment for fostering such long-term, existentially focused AI. He declared, “For long-term optimization, it is better to be a private than a public company, as the latter is punished for long-term optimization beyond the reward cycle of stock portfolio managers.”

Ani, an anime avatar wearing a tight black dress, was launched the same day the tech billionaire was awarded a $200 million Department of Defense contract.

AI released two AI "companions" on its Grok platform, a Japanese anime girl named "Ani" and an animated red panda called "Rudi."

Musk's Grok AI just dropped a new Companion modes, featuring a flirty anime chatbot called Ani, and it has got the internet buzzing.

This is the smartest AI in the world,” Musk said. He did not mention the chatbot’s viral posts praising Hitler and calling itself “MechaHitler.”

Elon Musk on Wednesday teased a forthcoming male Grok companion from xAI, which already offers an anime waifu named Ani and a red panda named Rudi.

xAI’s latest frontier model, Grok 4, has been released without industry-standard safety reports, despite the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, being notably vocal about his concerns regarding AI safety. Leading AI labs typically release safety reports known as “system cards” alongside frontier models.