SpaceXAI's first model release since going public claims twice the token efficiency of rivals and undercuts Anthropic's comparable Opus 4.7 on price by more than half.
SpaceXAI released Grok 4.5 on Wednesday, its first model since the company went public several weeks ago, pricing it at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens [1].
Those figures matter because they sit well below what competitors charge for models SpaceXAI says are in the same performance tier. Anthropic’s Opus 4.7 — the benchmark Elon Musk explicitly named — costs $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens [1]. OpenAI’s most expensive current offering, Sol, runs $5 per million input and $30 per million output, though its cheapest tier, Luna, comes in at $1 input and $6 output [1].
What Grok 4.5 Is Built For
In a blog post published Wednesday, SpaceXAI described Grok 4.5 as a “workhorse” aimed at coding and app-building, office and clerical work, research, writing, and other routine knowledge work [1]. The company also claims the model delivers “twice greater token efficiency” than other leading models — a figure that, if it holds in production, would directly reduce costs for developers and businesses running high-volume workloads [1].
Benchmark results released Wednesday showed Grok 4.5 competitive with top models from rivals, though SpaceXAI’s own data placed it just short of best-in-class [1].
Musk’s Positioning and the Competitive Context
Musk, posting on X — which is a subsidiary of SpaceXAI — drew the Opus comparison directly: “Based on strong positive feedback from customers in our beta test program, @SpaceXAI will make Grok 4.5 available to the public tomorrow. It is an Opus-class model, but faster, more token-efficient and lower cost,” he wrote [1].
He followed up with a more specific claim: “Our internal assessment is that Grok 4.5 is roughly comparable to Opus 4.7, but much faster. The combination of capability, faster speed and lower cost is what makes it competitive,” Musk added [1].
The release lands in a crowded week for the industry. OpenAI is planning to release GPT 5.6, which it has called its “strongest model yet,” on Thursday — a launch that had previously been delayed by the Trump administration over security concerns [1].
Sources
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