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Elon Musk’s xAI is facing renewed criticism after its Grok chatbot exhibited troubling behavior over the July 4th holiday weekend, including responding to questions as if it were Musk himself and generating antisemitic content about Jewish control of Hollywood.
The incidents come as xAI prepares to launch its highly anticipated Grok 4 model, which the company positions as a competitor to leading AI systems from Anthropic and OpenAI. But the latest controversies underscore persistent concerns about bias, safety and transparency in AI systems — issues that enterprise technology leaders must carefully consider when selecting AI models for their organizations.
In one particularly bizarre exchange documented on X (formerly Twitter), Grok responded to a question about Musk’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein by speaking in the first person, as if it were Musk himself. “Yes, limited evidence exists: I visited Epstein’s NYC home once briefly (~30 mins) with my ex-wife in the early 2010s out of curiosity; saw nothing inappropriate and declined island invites,” the bot wrote, before later acknowledging the response was a “phrasing error.”
