Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, has sparked controversy with the launch of two new "companion" chatbots, Ani and Bad Rudy

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

(Reuters) -Elon Musk's xAI is in talks to lease data center capacity in Saudi Arabia, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, as part of an effort to expand its infrastructure in regions offering cheap energy and political goodwill.

Elon Musk's xAI startup is swimming in controversy after launching Grok 4, the latest version of its snarky AI chatbot. Last week, the company boasted that Grok 4 achieved higher scores than quite a few other large language models (LLMs) on various industry benchmarks.

Elon Musk’s company xAI apologized after Grok posted hate speech and extremist content, blaming a code update and pledging new safeguards to prevent future incidents.

People who pay for access to SuperGrok can now try the AI chatbot’s new “Companions” avatars, xAI owner Elon Musk announced Monday morning. The companions available currently include Ani, an anime avatar, and Rudy, a cartoony red panda.

The Department of Defense under Secretary Pete Hegseth has been fixated on buzzwords like “warfighting” and “warfighters,” and adopting new AI tools is part of that mission, according to leaders at the agency. And Monday’s press release was filled to the brim with similarly grandiose language.