AXIOS (Madison Mills) - Musk and Zuckerberg claw back into AI race with new model momentum
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have muscled their way back into AI's elite ranks, defying early obituaries to close the gap on a new generation of Silicon Valley startups. Why it matters: Recent gains by tech giants SpaceX and Meta — long stuck in AI's second tier — are putting new pressure on a hierarchy dominated by OpenAI and Anthropic. State of play: Both companies released models this week featuring a combination of performance and price that would have been hard to imagine from either lab a year ago. - SpaceX's Grok 4.6 scored essentially even with OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol Max on the closely watched Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index , and just behind Anthropic's Fable 5 Max. - Promising "something special," Musk said Grok…
AI:Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have aggressively re-entered the elite AI arms race by leveraging the massive scale of their respective empires to challenge the dominance of OpenAI and Anthropic. Musk has integrated xAI into SpaceX in a $60 billion move, utilizing proprietary data and immense computing power to push Grok 4.6 to performance levels rivaling GPT-5.6, with even more advanced iterations expected imminently. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is pivoting Meta toward "superintelligence for everyone" by focusing on high-performance, low-cost models like Muse Glimmer that can run locally, a strategy backed by a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. As the battle shifts from raw intelligence to cost-effectiveness and resource deployment, these…Open