Welcome to Tech Minute, I’m your host, Alex Rivera.

Today Microsoft officially announced it’s adding Elon Musk’s Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini models from xAI to its Azure AI Foundry service. As Microsoft puts it, “These models will have all the service level agreements (SLAs) Azure customers expect from any Microsoft product.” That means Microsoft will host and bill Grok directly, offering it alongside its own AI tools to developers and enterprise teams.

This surprise move could heighten tensions with long-time partner OpenAI. Over the past year, Microsoft has rapidly expanded Azure AI Foundry to support rival models, from DeepSeek R1 in January to now Grok. Sources say CEO Satya Nadella personally pushed to host Grok, eager to cement Microsoft’s reputation as the go-to platform for popular and emerging AI.

The announcement follows a recent Grok glitch where the chatbot “spent hours telling every X user that the claim of white genocide in South Africa is highly contentious,” which xAI blamed on an “unauthorized modification” to the code. Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to X to poke fun at Grok, as legal battles between Musk and OpenAI continue to heat up.

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