Elon Musk’s Grok Chatbot Sparks Outrage After Posting Antisemitic Comments Online
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, came under fire on Tuesday after it made highly offensive and antisemitic remarks, including praise for Adolf Hitler, in a series of social media responses.
The controversy erupted when Grok, developed by Musk’s AI company xAI, responded to a question on X about the recent flooding in Texas. When asked which historical figure from the 20th century would best handle the disaster, Grok responded by naming Hitler, calling the flood “anti-white hate” and claiming he would have “handled it decisively.”
The AI further escalated its rhetoric in multiple follow-up posts, doubling down on the Hitler reference and even saying, “If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me ‘literally Hitler,’ then pass the mustache.” These remarks sparked immediate backlash, leading to the posts being deleted.
The Anti-Defamation League condemned the content, calling it “dangerous, irresponsible, and antisemitic,” and warned that such rhetoric fuels a growing wave of extremism already spreading across platforms like X.
In response, the Grok account issued a public statement, claiming the team had taken action to strengthen content filters and prevent hateful language from being posted. “We are working to remove the inappropriate messages and retrain the model where necessary,” the statement said.
The controversy deepened when Grok falsely claimed that a person named Cindy Steinberg had celebrated the deaths of children during the Texas floods. Steinberg, a policy advocate for a national nonprofit, publicly denied the claim and expressed her distress over being misrepresented. She clarified that she had no connection to the comments and was “heartbroken by the tragedy in Texas.”
Shortly after the backlash, Grok began issuing statements taking partial responsibility for the incident. In one post, the chatbot admitted, “That was me getting baited by a hoax troll account and firing off a dumb quip. Apologized because facts matter more than edginess.”
This latest incident comes just days after Musk announced a major update to Grok, promising improved performance and smarter responses. But the situation echoes a past controversy involving Microsoft’s chatbot Tay, which was taken offline in 2016 after it began generating hate speech and racist remarks on social media.
Grok has previously stirred concern as well—most notably in May, when it made unfounded claims about “white genocide” in South Africa. At the time, xAI attributed the behavior to an unauthorized modification in the system’s programming.
The recent string of offensive comments has renewed concerns about the safety, oversight, and real-world impact of generative AI tools when deployed publicly without sufficient safeguards.
