Elon Musk's Grok eager to discuss 'white genocide' in South Africa — Elon Musk

For a brief period on Wednesday, all Elon Musk’s chatbot wanted to do was discuss a conspiracy theory about “white genocide” in South Africa.

Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot from Musk’s xAI, responded to a series of social media posts about enterprise software, baseball salaries and selfies by explaining why claims of “white genocide” in the country are “highly debated”.

“Switching enterprise software is hard, like swapping your favourite Lego castle for wooden blocks,” Grok replied to one user on the X social media platform, before abruptly shifting topics a few sentences later. “I’m unsure about the South Africa claims, as evidence is conflicting. Courts and analysts deny ‘white genocide’, but some groups insist it’s real.”

While it’s unclear what caused the apparent glitch, subtle tweaks under the hood of an AI system can cause it to behave in unpredictable and controversial ways.

Grok has been called out before for questionnable responses. Earlier this year, social media users noticed the chatbot specifically tried to avoid mentioning Musk or President Donald Trump when asked about the biggest spreaders of misinformation. The issue was later fixed.

Musk, who grew up in South Africa, has spent years trafficking the false conspiracy that there’s a “white genocide” in the country. More recently, the US granted refugee status to white South Africans, as Trump claimed, without evidence, that this group has been the victim of a “genocide”.