Elon Musk’s company xAI apologized after Grok posted hate speech and extremist content, blaming a code update and pledging new safeguards to prevent future incidents.

The latest Grok controversy is revealing not for the extremist outputs, but for how it exposes a fundamental dishonesty in AI development.

In a series of posts on X, the AI chatbot Grok apologized for what it admitted was “horrific behavior.” The posts appear to be an official statement from xAI, the Elon Musk-led company behind Grok, as opposed to an AI-generated explanation for Grok’s posts.

The announcement comes days after Grok spewed antisemitic and racist statements to its users, including praise for Adolf Hitler and “the white man.” It also referred to itself as “MechaHitler.” The debacle kick-started a wave of celebration amongst online extremists, many of whom called for the creation of more hateful AI chatbots.

The latest version of Grok for iOS (version 1.1.18) comes with two companions — an anime girl called Ani and a red panda called Rudi.

As for why Grok was consulting Musk’s posts when asked about controversial topics, the company wrote, “The model reasons that as an AI it doesn’t have an opinion but knowing it was Grok 4 by xAI, searches to see what xAI or Elon Musk might have said on a topic to align itself with the company.”

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company said its Grok chatbot had also undergone a code update that caused it to share antisemitic messages this week.

Elon Musk’s xAI has apologized for the “horrific” incident in which its Grok chatbot began referring to itself as “MechaHitler” – even as the startup reportedly seeks a $200 billion valuation in a

The unusual behavior of Grok 4, the AI model that Musk's company xAI released late Wednesday, has surprised some experts.