Grok Bot's hidden "Elon-Only Settings" picker lists 33 models

RUNTIMEWIRE INVESTIGATION — Exclusive

Original reporting by RuntimeWire, based on documents, testing, reverse engineering.

Why it matters

The hidden catalog shows Grok Bot can route persistent agents across rival models, giving SpaceXAI and Cursor control of the interface, account and billing layer above the models.

Reporting record

SpaceXAI shipped Grok Bot with a hidden model picker labeled "Elon-Only Settings," even as its teams and enterprises guide says the product has no model picker and does not plan to permit users or administrators to choose models. A separate settings guide still documents a default-model control "when model selection is available."

The dormant control is connected to an authenticated, account-scoped catalog containing 33 models from xAI and competing AI labs, RuntimeWire found.

RuntimeWire activated the desktop client's local display guard, exposing a settings card that the app ordinarily leaves hidden. The card contained a Model control populated with live account data. The returned entries included Grok 4.5, Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol, alongside models from Google, Moonshot AI and Z.ai.

The catalog and shipped request machinery show that Grok Bot was built to accept selections from rival model providers. They do not establish that a selected GPT, Claude or other outside model actually served a Bot turn. The tested account was in the sand_model_selection treatment arm.

The count is a snapshot of the tested account, rather than a promise that every Grok Bot subscriber can use all 33 entries. Catalog contents and execution rights can vary by plan, organization and rollout. The inspection also does not establish that Elon Musk personally uses the panel. "Elon-Only Settings" is the literal client label, and its presence shows how SpaceXAI's developers categorized the control inside the shipped application.

SpaceXAI's guides conflict with each other and the shipped client

SpaceXAI's public documentation gives two different accounts of model selection. Its teams and enterprises guide is categorical: "Grok Bot has no model picker, for members or admins. We do not plan to allow admin or user choice for models that are used with Grok Bot." Yet its general settings page documents a "Default Model, when model selection is available."

The shipped client contains the control described conditionally by the settings guide and ruled out by the enterprise guide. RuntimeWire exposed it by changing the local visibility guard that suppresses the card for the tested account. The app then requested the account's live model catalog and populated the control with 33 entries.

RuntimeWire changed only the client-side visibility condition. The "Elon-Only Settings" label, Model control, authenticated catalog request and returned model entries were already present in the shipped application.

The discrepancy is consequential for enterprise buyers because SpaceXAI's guide does not merely say model choice is currently unavailable. It says Grok Bot has no picker and that SpaceXAI does not plan to allow either administrators or users to choose the models the product uses. The shipped client and the separate settings guide preserve precisely that capability, even if access remains limited by account, plan or rollout.

The model picker also fits Grok Bot's unusual product architecture. Despite carrying the Grok name, the application relies on Cursor accounts and infrastructure. SpaceXAI's setup guide directs users to sign in with Cursor, download the desktop client through Cursor and use an eligible SuperGrok Heavy, Cursor Ultra or Cursor Teams Premium plan.

SpaceXAI's privacy and security documentation says Grok Bot follows Cursor authentication, account settings and training opt-out choices. Its cloud computer stores browser sessions, files and credentials that can be shared among a user's Bots. The product therefore sits on a broader Cursor account and model-routing foundation, even as SpaceXAI markets the agents as Grok teammates.

Grok Bot can expose multi-provider choice without changing its pitch

Cursor already sells access to frontier models from multiple providers. Its pricing page advertises frontier-model access and cloud agents, while its own Grok material says Cursor and SpaceXAI jointly trained Grok 4.5. A model catalog containing GPT, Claude, Gemini, Kimi and GLM is consistent with that underlying supplier structure.

For SpaceXAI, the arrangement provides a faster route into persistent computer-using agents. Grok Bot's product documentation says each user receives a cloud computer with a browser, filesystem and terminal. Bots can retain sessions, run routines and coordinate with one another. Model selection could let SpaceXAI or Cursor assign different reasoning engines to those jobs while preserving the Grok Bot interface and its saved working state.

That matters because the agent layer increasingly controls the customer relationship. The model can change underneath while the user's Bots, files, approvals, routines and connected accounts remain in place. The hidden picker gives Grok Bot the technical surface to make those selections visible to eligible users or keep them behind automatic routing.

SpaceXAI's documentation says all Bots attached to one user share a cloud computer and its authenticated sessions. That persistent state is the product's main source of lock-in: changing the underlying model is easier than rebuilding the Bot's working environment somewhere else.

The "Elon-Only Settings" label exposes a rough internal seam in an otherwise polished beta. The consequential part is the live catalog behind it and the documentation conflict around it. Grok Bot arrived with the client and backend machinery for selected accounts to choose among multiple model providers, while SpaceXAI's enterprise guide says that choice neither exists nor is planned.