On Tuesday, OpenAI launched a new product called Dots, an always-on AI agent with a bubbly, blobby avatar. While the colorful avatar might evoke a smile, the biggest laugh from the launch is (we imagine) being had by Elon Musk, the former OpenAI founder who left, launched competitor Grok, and unsuccessfully sued.
That’s because the domain “dot.com” belongs to Musk’s xAI, and it currently redirects to the download page for xAI’s Grok chatbot app. According to the Whois domain owner registry, that domain name was just transferred in July.
It is entirely possible that xAI bought the domain for normal domain-buying reasons. “Dot” could be a typo of “bot,” so it nabbed it to grab mistyped searches. We’ve reached out to xAI and asked. But xAI doesn’t own the “bot.com” name, nor does it own other obvious typo domains like “vot.com,” which is listed for sale.
The internet’s theory is far funnier: that Musk (or his team) pulled off a prank, getting wind of OpenAI’s new product and its name and buying the domain name.
In fact, anonymous X user and xAI watcher @birdabo (this person calls themselves “chief shitposting officer @SpaceXAI“) was first to spot the domain name in a now-viral post. Whatever the motivation, the circumstance is funny.
And as for the “dots.com” domain, a more direct fit to the product name, it currently belongs to a long-defunct company. So if a petty revenge prank was really the motivation, grabbing that name, too, would be next level.