Internet speculates Elon Musk’s xAI trolled OpenAI’s Dots launch with domain prank

Domain acquisition fuels rumors of a playful jab

On Tuesday, OpenAI introduced Dots, an always‑on AI agent with a bubbly, blobby avatar. The launch comes as Elon Musk, the former OpenAI co‑founder who departed to create rival Grok and unsuccessfully sued the company, watches from the sidelines.

The domain dot.com, which matches the product name, is owned by Musk’s xAI. It currently redirects visitors to the download page for xAI’s Grok chatbot app. Whois records show the domain was transferred in July.

xAI may have purchased the domain for typical reasons such as capturing mistyped traffic, but the company does not hold bot.com or other obvious typo domains, which suggests the purchase was not purely defensive.

Online observers have seized on the coincidence, theorizing that Musk or his team learned of OpenAI’s Dots and bought dot.com to mock the launch. The redirect to Grok reinforces the joke.

Anonymous X user @birdabo, who describes themselves as “chief shitposting officer @SpaceXAI,” was the first to spotlight the domain. Their viral post included a screenshot and the caption:

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO WAY. > OpenAI just announced Dots.> SpaceXAI bought https://t.co/WdFqpl07IQit redirects straight to the Grok Bot download page. based lmao. pic.twitter.com/HF95hLF0T9

The exact “dots.com” domain is registered to a long‑defunct company, so acquiring it would represent an extra layer of mischief if revenge were the goal.

While xAI has not confirmed any prank, the timing, the redirect, and the playful online chatter make the episode a memorable moment in the ongoing rivalry between Musk’s xAI and OpenAI.