The internet is convinced Elon Musk's xAI trolled OpenAI's 'Dots' launch

On Tuesday, OpenAI launched "Dots," a new always-on AI agent with a colorful blobby avatar. However, the internet quickly noticed that the domain "dot.com" belongs to Elon Musk's xAI and currently redirects to the download page for xAI's Grok chatbot app. According to Whois records, the domain was transferred in July. While xAI could have purchased the domain for practical reasons such as capturing typo searches for "bot," it notably does not own other obvious typo domains like "bot.com" or "vot.com." The popular internet theory is that Musk's team learned about OpenAI's upcoming product and name, and deliberately bought the domain as a prank. The theory was first popularized by anonymous X user and xAI watcher @birdabo, who goes by "chief shitposting officer @SpaceXAI" in a now-viral post. The article notes that the more directly matching domain "dots.com" still belongs to a defunct company, suggesting that if revenge were the motive, grabbing that domain too would have been the ultimate move. TechCrunch has reached out to xAI for comment.

(Source：TechCrunch)