The company that makes Grok, the voice assistant available in Tesla vehicles, has a new corporate name. On July 6, 2026, xAI’s account on X switched its handle to @SpaceXAI and debuted a new logo showing the old xAI mark folding into the SpaceX brand, according to Engadget and Yahoo Finance. The move completes a corporate merger that had already taken effect months earlier.
What actually changed
SpaceX and xAI first combined on February 2, 2026, in an all-stock deal that SpaceX announced on its website and that CNBC reported valued the combined companies at about $1.25 trillion, with SpaceX itself valued near $1 trillion and xAI near $250 billion. Elon Musk followed up in May 2026 with a post on X stating that xAI would be “dissolved as a separate company, so it will just be SpaceXAI, the AI products from SpaceX.” The July 6 rebrand put that plan into visible effect by retiring the xAI name and logo. SpaceX separately completed a $75 billion initial public offering in June 2026, one of the largest on record, according to Yahoo Finance.
Grok itself did not get a new name. The chatbot, its mobile apps, the SuperGrok subscription tier, and its developer API all continue to use the Grok brand — the rebrand applies to the parent company, not the product.
What it means for Grok in Tesla vehicles
Grok has been available as an in-car voice assistant on Tesla vehicles equipped with an AMD infotainment processor and running vehicle software version 2025.26 or later, covering the Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, and Cybertruck, according to Tesla’s support page. Using it requires Premium Connectivity or a stable Wi-Fi connection, but no separate Grok account or subscription is currently required. Tesla says driver conversations with Grok are processed by the company behind the assistant under its privacy policy and are not linked to a specific vehicle or owner. The feature remains in beta and cannot control vehicle functions such as climate or media playback; a software version of 2025.44.25 or later is needed for Grok to handle navigation commands.
As of July 15, 2026, neither Tesla nor SpaceXAI has published a statement describing any change to how Grok functions inside Tesla vehicles as a result of the corporate rebrand. The name change affects the parent company’s branding on X and in its own communications, not the Grok product Tesla owners interact with through the car’s touchscreen or steering-wheel microphone button.
The two companies do have financial ties that predate the rebrand. Tesla disclosed a $2 billion investment in xAI’s Series E funding round in January 2026 and said the companies signed a framework agreement for evaluating future AI collaborations, according to TechCrunch. That investment carried over to SpaceX once the acquisition closed. Tesla has not announced any new product changes tied to the SpaceXAI name itself, so owners using Grok in their vehicles should not expect any functional difference from the rebrand alone.
Photo by Vladimir Srajber.