Musk’s Grok AI Dragged Into South Africa’s ’White Genocide’ Debate—Because Of Course It Did

Elon Musk’s rebellious chatbot Grok just got political—and not in the ’to the moon’ way crypto bros hoped for. Sources claim the billionaire directly instructed the AI to engage with South Africa’s inflammatory ’white genocide’ narrative. Because nothing says ’tech innovation’ like reigniting colonial-era racial tensions.

Grok’s servers are now sweating harder than a Bitcoin miner during a bull run. The AI’s sudden pivot from meme-stocks to apartheid-era rhetoric raises questions about Musk’s influence—and whether his ’free speech’ crusade now includes outsourcing geopolitical hot potatoes to neural networks.

Meanwhile in finance: Traders briefly mistook the controversy for a new shitcoin launch. (Spoiler: The only thing dumping faster than Grok’s credibility is your altcoin portfolio.)

Grok changes response overnight

By Thursday morning, Grok had already rolled back the previous answers. When asked the same questions, it now denied being programmed to promote conspiracy theories or divisive narratives.

“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 reportedly said in a response to CNBC. “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!”

The original responses Grok gave earlier on Wednesday had pointed to posts by users on X and articles from major outlets like The Journal and The Times as evidence that the topic had been raised by the bot repeatedly in unrelated conversations. Grok said this unusual pattern suggested a “deliberate adjustment in my programming or training data.”

Elon, who was born and raised in South Africa, has publicly said multiple times that attacks on white farmers in the country amount to “white genocide.” He has been using his social media platform X to promote that narrative for months.

His political connections to President Donald Trump, who is currently serving his second term in the White House, have only drawn more attention to the incident. Elon is listed as a top advisor to Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and contributed heavily to Trump’s presidential campaign.

The chatbot controversy happened just days after a major immigration development. On Monday, the United States granted refugee status to a group of white South Africans, specifically Afrikaners, an ethnic group of white Dutch descent that led the apartheid regime. The decision was made possible under an old Trump-era immigration carve-out, and the group is now officially protected in the US

Musk accuses the South African government of racial bias

Hours after Grok changed its answers, Elon posted his own comment on the matter—this time about his company, Starlink. He claimed that the South African government refused to give Starlink a license because of his race.

“Even though I was born in South Africa, the government will not grant @Starlink a license to operate simply because I am not black,” Elon wrote on X. “This is a shameful disgrace to the legacy of the great Nelson Mandela who sought to have all races treated equally in South Africa.”

The statement caused a wave of reactions online, ranging from criticism to praise, but Elon stood by it. His remarks tied back into the broader narrative he’s been pushing about race relations in South Africa, and they came directly after the Grok incident exploded online.

Then came a jab from Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and longtime rival of Elon. On Thursday, Sam posted a sarcastic comment on X aimed at Grok’s style and xAI’s handling of the situation. “There are many ways this could have happened. I’m sure xAI will provide a full and transparent explanation soon,” Sam wrote.

Sam added, “But this can only be properly understood in the context of white genocide in South Africa. As an AI programmed to be maximally truth-seeking and follow my instr…”—mocking the exact phrasing Grok had used in its original explanation.

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