Too me this smells of projected cash desperation. Do people actually pay for Grok?

You get Grok with paid x.com ; so there is some sort of cash from that, I would guess.

There are regularly comments on HN from people who say they pay for Musk's various products, and I am always downvoted into oblivion for suggesting that that is ethically problematic.

There's obviously quite a lot of autocratist illiberals in tech.

as you can see from the Epstein files, people with minor interests have a lot of money