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Incident 1072: Grok Chatbot Reportedly Inserted Content About South Africa and 'White Genocide' in Unrelated User Queries

Description: xAI's Grok chatbot reportedly inserted unsolicited references to "white genocide" in South Africa into a wide array of unrelated conversations on X. These reported interjections introduced inflammatory, racially charged content into otherwise neutral threads.

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The OECD AI Incidents and Hazards Monitor (AIM) automatically collects and classifies AI-related incidents and hazards in real time from reputable news sources worldwide.
 

Entities

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Alleged: xAI developed an AI system deployed by xAI and X (Twitter), which harmed X (Twitter) users , Black South Africans and Public discourse integrity.
Alleged implicated AI systems: X (Twitter) and Grok

Incident Stats

Incident ID
1072
Report Count
9
Incident Date
2025-05-14
Editors
Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+1
Elon Musk’s Grok AI Can’t Stop Talking About ‘White Genocide’
The Day Grok Told Everyone About ‘White Genocide’+4
A ‘rogue employee’ was behind Grok’s unprompted ‘white genocide’ mentions
+1
Grok’s ‘white genocide’ auto responses show AI chatbots can be tampered with ‘at will’
Elon Musk’s Grok AI Can’t Stop Talking About ‘White Genocide’

Elon Musk’s Grok AI Can’t Stop Talking About ‘White Genocide’

wired.com

The Day Grok Told Everyone About ‘White Genocide’

The Day Grok Told Everyone About ‘White Genocide’

theatlantic.com

A ‘rogue employee’ was behind Grok’s unprompted ‘white genocide’ mentions

A ‘rogue employee’ was behind Grok’s unprompted ‘white genocide’ mentions

cnn.com

Musk's xAI updates Grok chatbot after 'white genocide' comments

Musk's xAI updates Grok chatbot after 'white genocide' comments

reuters.com

Employee’s Change Caused xAI’s Chatbot to Veer Into South African Politics

Employee’s Change Caused xAI’s Chatbot to Veer Into South African Politics

nytimes.com

Musk's xAI says Grok's 'white genocide' posts resulted from an unauthorized change to the bot

Musk's xAI says Grok's 'white genocide' posts resulted from an unauthorized change to the bot

nbcnews.com

Grok’s white genocide fixation caused by ‘unauthorized modification’

Grok’s white genocide fixation caused by ‘unauthorized modification’

theverge.com

Grok’s ‘white genocide’ auto responses show AI chatbots can be tampered with ‘at will’

Grok’s ‘white genocide’ auto responses show AI chatbots can be tampered with ‘at will’

cnbc.com

Musk’s company now claims Grok’s lies of a nonexistent ‘white genocide’ in South Africa were ‘unauthorized’

Musk’s company now claims Grok’s lies of a nonexistent ‘white genocide’ in South Africa were ‘unauthorized’

the-independent.com

Elon Musk’s Grok AI Can’t Stop Talking About ‘White Genocide’
wired.com · 2025

A chatbot developed by Elon Musk's multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence startup xAI appeared to be suffering from a glitch Wednesday when it repeatedly brought up white genocide in South Africa in response to user queries about unrel…

The Day Grok Told Everyone About ‘White Genocide’
theatlantic.com · 2025

Yesterday, a user on X saw a viral post of Timothée Chalamet celebrating courtside at a Knicks game and had a simple question: Who was sitting next to him? The user tapped in Grok, X's proprietary chatbot, as people often do when they want …

A ‘rogue employee’ was behind Grok’s unprompted ‘white genocide’ mentions
cnn.com · 2025

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company on Friday said a "rogue employee" was behind its chatbot's unsolicited rants about "white genocide" in South Africa earlier this week.

The clarification comes less than 48 hours after Grok --- the…

Musk's xAI updates Grok chatbot after 'white genocide' comments
reuters.com · 2025

Elon Musk's xAI responded to widespread reports that its Grok chatbot made claims about a genocide against white citizens in South Africa, saying there had been an unauthorized change to the artificial intelligence bot. In a post on X on Th…

Employee’s Change Caused xAI’s Chatbot to Veer Into South African Politics
nytimes.com · 2025

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, told users on Thursday evening that an "unauthorized modification" had caused its chatbot to repeatedly bring up South African politics in unrelated conversations and falsely insist that the…

Musk's xAI says Grok's 'white genocide' posts resulted from an unauthorized change to the bot
nbcnews.com · 2025

Elon Musk's xAI on Thursday evening made its first public comment about the latest controversy surrounding Grok, writing in a post on X that an "unauthorized modification" caused the chatbot to generate variations of a "specific response on…

Grok’s white genocide fixation caused by ‘unauthorized modification’
theverge.com · 2025

After xAI's chatbot Grok spent a few hours on Wednesday telling every X user that would listen that the claim of white genocide in South Africa is highly contentious, the company has blamed the behavior on an "unauthorized modification" to …

Grok’s ‘white genocide’ auto responses show AI chatbots can be tampered with ‘at will’
cnbc.com · 2025

In the two-plus years since generative artificial intelligence took the the world by storm following the public release of ChatGPT, trust has been a perpetual problem.

Hallucinations, bad math and cultural biases have plagued results, remin…

Musk’s company now claims Grok’s lies of a nonexistent ‘white genocide’ in South Africa were ‘unauthorized’
the-independent.com · 2025

Trump officials earlier this week welcomed 59 South African white "refugees" into the United States, even as the president is closing the borders to people of color. He said Monday that the white incomers have been "essentially extended cit…

Variants

A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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