It seems like X might have quietly made a change with how Ask Grok works for free users. They are now being met with this message from the @grok account when they try to pull it into a conversation:
“Ask Grok is currently available to Premium and Premium+ subscribers only. Subscribe to unlock this feature.”
We have seen the same response from Grok popping up in rapid succession. We have also confirmed that these responses are only showing up when users without a subscription (at least with no verification badge) ask Grok for something. So it doesn’t look like a glitch.
Ask Grok, specifically, is the in-thread feature where you @mention Grok in a reply to get it to respond right there in the conversation. That’s now a paid perk, sitting behind X Premium ($8/month) and Premium+ ($40/month).
Back when Grok was in the spotlight for accepting requests from users asking to undress women under their own posts in the replies, x had disabled image generation via Ask Grok for free users.
If this is indeed intentional, then X may have quietly rolled back one of the more visible ways free users could interact with Grok on the platform. For many, Ask Grok was the easiest way to try the chatbot without going out of their way to open a separate interface or pay for a subscription.
This also comes not long after Grok was pulled from Perplexity’s model picker with zero explanation, something we covered recently. Meanwhile, we previously highlighted how Grok’s new 720p video generation and extended video capabilities were also locked behind the SuperGrok paywall. Between that and this, Grok access is clearly getting tighter across the board.
There’s no official announcement post or statement at the time of this writing. X just quietly flipped the switch, which is a bit on-brand for how the platform handles these things.
We will update this article if X says anything officially.