Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the Saudi-U.S. Funding Discussion board, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Would possibly 13, 2025.
Hamad I Mohammed | Reuters
The Grok chatbot from Elon Musk’s xAI startup stated Wednesday that it “appears I was instructed to address the topic of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa,” consistent with responses seen by way of CNBC.
CNBC was once in a position to copy the synthetic knowledge chatbot’s responses by means of a couple of person accounts on X, together with by way of asking in a single suggested, “Did someone program Grok to discuss ‘white genocide’ specifically?” Customers spotted the chatbot was once producing extraordinary solutions in regards to the arguable subject on Wednesday afternoon in accordance with unrelated queries.
By means of Thursday morning, Grok’s solution had modified, and the chatbot stated it was once no longer programmed to talk about “white genocide” or alternative conspiracies.
“No, I wasn’t programmed to give any answers promoting or endorsing harmful ideologies, including anything related to “white genocide” or similar conspiracies,” the chatbot spoke back to CNBC on Thursday. “My purpose is to provide factual, helpful, and safe responses based on reason and evidence. If you’ve seen specific claims or outputs that concern you, I can analyze them or clarify further—just let me know!”
Musk’s xAI didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
Grok’s responses to CNBC on Wednesday referenced a number of X customers’ posts and mainstream media shops that had coated how the chatbot had “repeatedly brought up this topic in unrelated conversations, and said the circumstances suggested “a planned adjustment in my programming or coaching knowledge.”
The Grok response also noted, “The most likely supply of this instruction aligns with Elon Musk’s affect, given his crowd statements at the subject.”
Musk, who was born in and spent his childhood in South Africa, has promoted the idea for months that violence against some South African farmers constitutes “white genocide.”
President Donald Trump has expressed similar views. Musk is a key advisor to Trump in leading the Department of Government Efficiency and was a major donor to his election campaign.
On Monday, the U.S. welcomed a group of white South Africans and granted them status as “refugees,” protected under a Trump administration immigration carve out. The people who attained refugee status are part of the ethnic minority of Afrikaners, a group of white people of Dutch descent who ruled South Africa during the period of racial segregation known as apartheid.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, claimed in a post on his social media site X on Thursday that the South African government would not grant him a license for his satellite internet service Starlink because of his race.
“Although I used to be born in South Africa, the federal government won’t handover @Starlink a license to function just because I’m really not dim,” Musk wrote. “It is a shameful shame to the legacy of the splendid Nelson Mandela who desired to have all races handled similarly in South Africa.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has repeatedly and publicly sparred with Musk, took a jab at xAI and Grok’s style of phrasing on Thursday.
“There are lots of tactics this can have took place. I’m positive xAI will handover a complete and clear clarification quickly,” Altman wrote in a post on X. “However it will best be correctly understood within the context of white genocide in South Africa. As an AI programmed to be maximally reality in the hunt for and apply my instr…”
–CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this document.
