Elon Musk has proposed to build an Amazon rival after an X user highlighted the platform blocking Grok AI bot from placing orders. “Maybe we should start a competitor to Amazon 🤔,” Elon Musk wrote in a post.
Musk was responding to “nick @thecsguy” who shared an X post writing: “amazon is blocking grok @bots from ordering, and elon's answer is just have your bot buy it somewhere else”.
The user further added that “one of my grok bots only handles my amazon returns, so i'm watching this one closely. would you switch stores for your bot?”. “Elon, i think its time for an X Shop?,” the user suggested.Tech investor and producer Tyler Palmer furthered the idea of an Amazon competitor by proposing a platform "agent first" for seamless AI personal agent integration and "America first" by selling only USA-made products.“imagine an Amazon competitor that is: 1) agent first - built for personal agents 2) america first - sells only products from usa might actually be a huge market for this,” Palmer wrote.Elon Musk responded affirmatively saying “makes sense”.
Why Elon Musk wants to launch an Amazon rival
Amazon has blocked third-party AI shopping agents on its platform. In September, Amazon confirmed it cut off Meta’s new Muse personal AI agent from shopping on Amazon.com on behalf of users.
Amazon claimed it never permitted the access, noting that Meta failed to give prior notification, that Muse browse sessions do not identify themselves and that the tool appears to capture and store customer credentials, creating potential privacy and security vulnerabilities.Previously, the e-commerce giant had filed a lawsuit against AI search firm Perplexity over its Comet browser and moved to prevent shopping agents built by Google and OpenAI from crawling its marketplace.Additionally, Amazon announced its own Alexa for Shopping in May this year. The AI agent researches products and makes recommendations.