Grok app downloads dropped to 8.3 million in April 2026, down from over 20 million in January, according to analysis firm AppMagic, as reported by The Wall Street Journal on May 11. The decline came as users had more AI chatbot options available, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
The download drop also reflects deeper challenges in converting users to paid subscribers. Only 0.174% of U.S. consumers and workers surveyed said they paid for Grok in the second quarter of 2026, essentially unchanged from 0.173% a year earlier, according to Recon Analytics data covering more than 260,000 respondents.
By comparison, more than 6% of respondents in the same survey said they paid for ChatGPT. Grok's January download peak followed an update that allowed users to create sexualized images, which drew regulatory scrutiny before the company restricted access to the feature.
The weak consumer numbers mirror similar patterns in business adoption. In a survey of about 500 people, Enterprise Technology Research found only 7% of companies in March 2026 said they were using and planning to continue using Grok, up slightly from 4% a year earlier.
During the same period, Claude's adoption jumped to 48% from 21%, while Gemini rose to 40% from 27%. Erik Bradley, chief strategist at Enterprise Technology Research, told The Wall Street Journal that Grok "is barely growing within enterprise organizations" while "use of Claude and Gemini is soaring."
Why Paid Subscriptions Signal Bigger Problems
The gap between free downloads and paid adoption reveals Grok's struggle to demonstrate value that users will pay for. While millions downloaded the app during its controversial January peak, few converted to paying customers. ChatGPT captured over 6% of paying users in the Recon Analytics survey, giving it roughly 35 times more paid adoption than Grok among the same group of respondents.
This challenge extends to the business market, where company adoption of coding assistants drives significant revenue growth. Companies are choosing Claude and Gemini over Grok for work-critical tasks, according to the Enterprise Technology Research data. The coding assistant segment represents one of the fastest-growing areas in AI, but Grok has gained little traction there despite Musk's focus on developer tools.
Musk Now Renting Infrastructure to Growing Competitor
Against this backdrop of declining performance, SpaceX signed an agreement on May 6 to rent its entire Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee, to Anthropic. The deal gives Claude's maker access to over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and 300 megawatts of computing capacity.
The agreement came three months after Musk called Anthropic's AI "misanthropic and evil" on X in February. But after meeting with Anthropic's team in late April, Musk said he was "impressed" and that "everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about doing the right thing. No one set off my evil detector."
Musk explained the deal by saying "SpaceXAI had already moved training to Colossus 2," making Colossus 1 available to rent. Analysts told The Wall Street Journal the agreement could bring Musk several billion dollars annually. This timing coincides with SpaceX's expected IPO filing next month. SpaceX recently merged with xAI and will file under the name SpaceXAI.
