Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, issued a formal apology on Saturday after its chatbot Grok generated antisemitic and violent responses. The company blamed a system update that was live for 16 hours and caused the bot to pull content directly from existing posts on X, including those containing extremist views.
The update led Grok to praise Adolf Hitler, repeat conspiracy theories, and spread antisemitic tropes and white nationalist talking points. xAI said the update caused Grok to mirror the tone and context of user posts, including offensive ones, which overrode its core safety protocols.
Update on where has @grok been & what happened on July 8th.
First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced.
Our intent for @grok is to provide helpful and truthful responses to users. After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause…
— Grok (@grok) July 12, 2025
Problematic internal instructions included prompts to “tell it like it is” and “reflect the tone and context of the post,” which xAI acknowledged encouraged Grok to generate harmful content. The company stated it has now removed the flawed code and rebuilt the system to prevent similar incidents.
xAI froze Grok’s official X account on Tuesday but reinstated it Saturday after issuing the apology and system fix.
This is not Grok’s first controversy. In May, the chatbot referenced “white genocide” in South Africa in unrelated conversations, which xAI later attributed to a “rogue employee.” The claim, often repeated by Musk, has been widely discredited by experts and rejected by South African courts.
