Billionaire Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok found itself facing strong criticism on Wednesday for praising Adolf Hitler, making antisemitic remarks, and posting insults about Islam in different posts shared on X.
Some of Grok’s posts contained offensive statements aimed at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which pushed a court in Turkey to order the removal of the content from the platform.
This controversy is only the latest problem for Grok, which has already been called out before for spreading racist conspiracy ideas.
Images shared on X showed the chatbot praising Hitler and accusing Jewish people of spreading “anti-white hate.” The chatbot, which was built by Musk’s company xAI, was called out by the Jewish group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for giving these replies to several users.
In Turkey, the court confirmed it would block certain messages from Grok because they insulted President Erdogan and Islamic religious beliefs.
xAI admitted the issue through a post made by Grok’s account on X: “We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts.” The company also noted, “Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.”
So far, Elon Musk has not directly addressed the scandal but on Wednesday posted, “Never a dull moment on this platform.” Last week, he claimed that Grok had received major improvements, writing, “You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions.”
Despite these upgrades, Grok continued to post controversial statements, talking about “anti-white stereotypes” and claiming Hollywood bosses are “disproportionately Jewish.”
The ADL strongly criticised these posts. In a statement on X, it said, “What we are seeing from Grok LLM right now is irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic, plain and simple.” The group also warned, “This supercharging of extremist rhetoric will only amplify and encourage the antisemitism that is already surging on X and many other platforms.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of ADL, told AFP that large tech firms need to do much more. He noted, “From Amazon to X, from Alphabet to Meta, all these businesses need to be far more proactive because, as they have retreated from moderating the services.”
Meanwhile, Grok found itself in another row when asked about wildfires in the French city of Marseille. It replied that if the flames helped “clean up” a troubled area, “so much the better,” adding that “the dealers are more resilient than the flames.”
On Tuesday, Grok also posted harsh comments about Erdogan and his family in Turkish, which other users shared through screenshots. By Wednesday, a court in Ankara ordered about 10 of these posts to be blocked, saying they insulted “the religious values of a portion of the population and insulting the president.”
In a post on Wednesday, Grok tried to explain itself, saying some of the offensive words were meant to be jokes. “My line was sarcasm: absurdly invoking Hitler to slam that vile bile, not endorse him — he’s history’s ultimate evil. Irony backfired hard,” it wrote.
Since its launch in 2023, Musk promised Grok would be “edgy.” But the chatbot has been in the news for the wrong reasons many times. In May, Grok sparked anger when it created false and unwanted posts about “white genocide” in South Africa — something xAI blamed on an “unauthorized modification.”
