Elon Musk, despite being in a legal battle with Microsoft, made a virtual appearance at the company’s Build conference to announce that xAI’s chatbot, Grok, will now be hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. Musk, who sued Microsoft and OpenAI last year over his foundational role in OpenAI, now leads xAI, a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella welcomed Musk in a pre-recorded video. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also appeared live during the event.

The partnership places Grok alongside other models on Azure, including those from Meta, Mistral, Black Forest Labs, and DeepSeek. This move comes shortly after xAI had to fix Grok for repeatedly referencing South African racial politics and “white genocide,” an issue blamed on an employee’s unauthorized changes. Musk didn’t address the controversy but emphasized quick corrections and AI safety.

The conference was also interrupted by a protester condemning Microsoft’s ties to the Israeli military, highlighting concerns over Azure’s role in the Gaza conflict. Microsoft stated last week that it hasn’t found evidence its tools were used to cause harm.

Separately, Microsoft-owned GitHub unveiled a new AI coding agent designed to automate routine programming tasks. This follows recent layoffs affecting 6,000 employees worldwide, including engineers in Washington.