Associated Incidents
xAI blamed "an unauthorized modification" for its chatbot Grok giving users off-topic and false responses about "white genocide" in South Africa this week.
Why it matters: xAI owner Elon Musk, who is from South Africa, has also
falsely accused the country of perpetuating "genocide" against white residents, a claim President Trump has also embraced.
- A South African court in February ruled there was no validity to the claims of a "white genocide."
Driving the news: "On May 14 at approximately 3:15 AM PST, an unauthorized modification was made to the Grok response bot's prompt on X. This change, which directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic, violated xAI's internal policies and core values," xAI said in a post late Thursday night.
- The company, which developed the Grok chatbot, said the required code review process "was circumvented in this incident."
- It also said it will publish Grok system prompts to GitHub to increase transparency.
Catch up quick: X users on Wednesday pointed out that Grok would respond to unrelated queries with misleading and previously debunked answers about a purported "white genocide" occurring in South Africa.
- In January, South Africa enacted a law allowing the government to seize land from white citizens --- who own the majority of the land in the country --- to address historic inequalities caused by apartheid.
Zoom out: Musk is a close adviser to Trump, who has made restricting immigration into the U.S. a top priority.
- Despite that, Trump has granted refugee status to white Afrikaners while denying those protections to other groups.
- In a February post on Truth Social, Trump accused South Africa of "treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY" in response to the land confiscation law.
Musk's Grok makes "white genocide" claims on X about South Africans
Trump and Musk's claims are misleading, frequently debunked, and historically revise the political power of white South Africans. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
An AI chatbot integrated into X (formerly Twitter) has begun to respond to users with unrelated, misleading claims about violence against white people in South Africa, users noticed this week.
Why it matters: The findings about Grok come as President Trump welcomes white South Africans into the U.S. as refugees and as Elon Musk has slammed his home country for what he's called a "genocide of white farmers."
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria, South Africa, on April 24. Photo:: Leon Sadiki/Bloomberg via Getty Images
During a visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, President Trump had videos shown in the Oval Office purporting to show evidence of violence against white people in the country.
The big picture: The visit comes after Trump cut all foreign assistance to the country and parroted false allegations that white South Africans are being subjected to genocide, while granting them refugee status in the U.S.
President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa and President Trump look on as a video plays Wednesday in the Oval Office. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Image
President Trump on Wednesday repeated false crime numbers, shared misleading images and doubled down on a debunked "white genocide" conspiracy theory in South Africa during his tense Oval Office meeting with that nation's president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Driving the news: Trump used a video made by political activists who oppose Ramaphosa to emphasize his claims about white Afrikaners facing racial violence by the majority Black population --- claims that are widely disputed and rooted in white nationalist conspiracy theories.