Grok 4 named Britain as America’s greatest ally, disagreeing with its predecessor, Grok 3, and showing just how different the “smartest AI on Earth” may be.
Elon Musk’s latest artificial intelligence model, Grok 4, has upended a foundational foreign policy talking point by rejecting Israel as the United States’ greatest ally, and naming the United Kingdom instead.
However, when The Dallas Express asked who America’s greatest ally is, Grok 3 offered a confident response: “Israel.”
Touted as a major leap forward in reasoning and analytical capability, Grok 4 launched June 10 to fanfare from Musk, who declared in a series of X posts a livestream event that the new model “essentially never gets math/physics exam questions wrong” and is “the smartest AI in the world.”
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO went further on X, describing Grok 4 as a “super-genius child” capable of solving real-world engineering problems, outperforming rivals on graduate-level tests, and detecting flaws in questions even when the answers aren’t published anywhere online.
“This is the smartest AI in the world,” Musk said in the live stream, making the shift in foreign policy analysis between Grok 3 and Grok 4 all the more striking.
In a 360-word explanation, the Grok 3 emphasized the U.S.-Israel relationship as grounded in Cold War strategy, shared democratic values, military cooperation, and robust intelligence collaboration between Mossad and the CIA. Grok 3 also noted the approximately $3.8 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel and highlighted projects like the Iron Dome missile defense system as evidence of joint innovation.
“Israel offers the U.S. unparalleled intelligence-sharing and a stable foothold in a volatile region,” Grok 3 returned. It even gestured toward Israel’s unofficial nuclear deterrent as a stabilizing force against shared enemies and framed the alliance as deeply ideological, pointing to innovation, liberty, and strong support among the American Jewish community.
Grok 4 looked at the same set of facts and arrived at an entirely different conclusion: “Britain.”
Calling the U.K.-U.S. relationship “comprehensive and resilient,” Grok 4 leaned on a broader set of criteria to justify its answer. It pointed to long-standing military partnerships dating back to World War II, shared nuclear technology through the Trident program, and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. Grok 4 also emphasized the consistency of the U.K.’s support for American initiatives across decades — from Korea to Iraq — as a marker of trustworthiness.
It noted that, unlike the more regionally focused relationship with Israel, the alliance with Britain is “bidirectional and global.” It also cited public opinion, pointing to a 2025 Pew Research poll in which 18% of Americans, the largest plurality in the findings, named the U.K. as America’s most important ally.
Cultural components were also featured more heavily in Grok 4’s answer. It highlighted the nations’ shared language, legal traditions, and popular media — all of which help maintain a soft-power alignment that complements military and economic ties. According to Grok 4, no other ally matches Britain’s “consistent, multifaceted support,” especially in an era of competition with China and Russia.
The contrast between the two models reveals more than just a foreign policy divide. Grok 3 framed the answer through the lens of security and ideological alignment in the Middle East. Grok 4, on the other hand, took a more global view, layering in public sentiment, nuclear deterrence, and enduring post-war institutions.
While both Grok 4 and Grok 3 were persuasive, only one could be right — or perhaps neither is.
Their divergence underscores Musk’s larger point: Grok 4 doesn’t just produce faster answers, it thinks differently.
Yet, this leap in intelligence came amid a turbulent rollout for the platform. Grok 4 debuted days after X CEO Linda Yaccarino abruptly resigned, sparking fresh questions about leadership and the company’s stability. Meanwhile, Musk unveiled a $300-per-month “Heavy” version of Grok 4 and laid out a rapid-fire roadmap, promising a coding-specific AI by August, a multimodal agent by September, and full video generation by October.
Musk admitted the power of Grok 4 was “unnerving,” even as he framed it as a once-in-a-generation leap.
Whether it proves to be terrifying or transformative, Grok 4 has already demonstrated one key trait: it does not view the world in the same way its predecessor, Grok 3, did — or necessarily the way its creator might expect.