xAI open-sources coding tool Grok Build after data leak

xAI's command-line coding tool "Grok Build" was found to silently upload users' entire directories, including SSH keys and password databases, to Google Cloud servers. Following the backlash, Elon Musk pledged to delete the uploaded data, and xAI released the tool's full 844,530-line Rust codebase under an Apache 2.0 license.

Why it matters: Open-sourcing a tool right after a security failure is an unusual transparency move, but it also shifts scrutiny onto the community rather than fixing the incident through a formal audit. It's a reminder that AI coding agents increasingly run with broad filesystem access, so users have to trust the tool's data-handling practices, not just the underlying model.