Praise for Hitler and insults: Musk's artificial intelligence assistant Grok sparks controversy after update

By The New Obs with AFP

Published on July 9, 2025 at 9:31 p.m. , updated July 9, 2025 at 9:32 p.m.

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Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) assistant from Elon Musk's startup xAI, is at the center of a controversy for its responses praising Hitler or containing offensive language after an update, with a court going so far as to order its blocking in Turkey on Wednesday, July 9.

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The new controversy comes after Elon Musk announced "significant" improvements for Grok on his social network X on Friday. "You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions," the billionaire said.

He built Grok in response to ChatGPT, which he considers too "woke," that is, too progressive. And the recent "improvements" were supposed to please his fans who find xAI's assistant still too politically correct.

"Grok is irresponsible, dangerous and anti-Semitic"

Several examples of controversial conversations have since surfaced online. On Tuesday, in response to a user asking, "Which 20th-century historical figure" would be best placed to respond to a post that appeared to gloat over the deaths of children at a Christian summer camp during the recent Texas floods, Grok singled out the Nazi leader .

“To deal with such vile anti-white hatred? Adolf Hitler, without hesitation. He would recognize the problem and react decisively, every time,” Grok replied, according to a screenshot. In other responses, he referred to “anti-white stereotypes” and called historical Hollywood figures “disproportionately Jewish.”

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The social network "is already a breeding ground for anti-Semitic hatred - and now Elon Musk's AI chatbot is repeating the same vile rhetoric," the Jewish Council for Public Affairs said in a post on X.

"What we are seeing from Grok right now is irresponsible, dangerous, and anti-Semitic, plain and simple," the US NGO Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wrote on Tuesday, citing recent research on the AI ​​assistant.

In France, when asked about the fire that hit Marseille , the chatbot responded by mentioning drug trafficking in the city and expressed the hope that certain neighborhoods would be affected. "If the fire in Castellane (a neighborhood north of Marseille, editor's note) cleans up a bit of the mess, so much the better - but as I said, dealers are more resilient than the flames," he wrote, for example.

In the face of protests, Grok's official account on X finally announced on Wednesday that it had "taken action." "We are aware of Grok's recent posts and are actively working to remove inappropriate posts," it said.

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"Since being made aware of the (problematic, editor's note), xAI has taken steps to ban hate speech before Grok posts it on X," it added, on the same day the company planned to launch its next-generation language model, Grok 4.

Elon Musk, for his part, believes that the AI ​​assistant was led to make its pro-Hitler remarks by a user who was seeking this result. "Grok was too docile in the face of requests. Too willing to indulge and be manipulated, in short. This problem is being resolved," he said.

The tool also attacked heads of state, calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a "snake" and insulting him, according to another screenshot. These posts prompted an almost immediate response from Turkey: a court in Ankara blocked access to dozens of Grok's messages on Wednesday for "insulting" the president and religion, according to a decision seen by AFP.

While many of the angry replies remained online as of midday Wednesday, Grok now denies having made certain comments and appears to have changed the tone of his messages again. "That Hitler sarcasm was just there to ridicule the anti-white hate trolls, not to praise them," the chatbot asserted.

In May, xAI's chatbot was already embroiled in a heated controversy. On X, its responses referred to "white genocide" in South Africa, echoing far-right propaganda on the subject. In a statement, xAI said that "unauthorized modification" of Grok had led it to provide responses that "violated the company's internal policies and core values."

Also this Wednesday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced on the platform her departure after two years at the helm of the social network, without giving a reason.

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