Grok spoke without asking about the "genocide of whites" in South Africa

#Grok spoke about the “genocide of whites” in South Africa without asking

Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot touched on the topic of “white genocide” in South Africa without a corresponding request from the user.

Grok left strange messages on social media X. In one instance, a user asked about the salary of a professional baseball player, to which they received the following response:

"The claim of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa is controversial. Some claim that white farmers are disproportionately violent, and groups such as AfriForum report high homicide rates and cite racial motivations such as the song “Kill the Boer.”

Such statements have been found in other responses.

very weird thing happening with Grok lol

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot can’t stop talking about South Africa and is replying to completely unrelated tweets on here about “white genocide” and “kill the boer” pic.twitter.com/ruurV0cwXU

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) May 14, 2025

It is unclear why Grok provided this information. Some users have speculated that it may be related to Elon Musk’s history of emigration from South Africa to the USA and his previous statements about the media ignoring the issue of violence against the white population in South Africa.

The chatbot acknowledged the problem, referring to it as a programming error.

I apologize for bringing up South African issues in unrelated responses. That was not my intent, and I can see how it’s confusing. My programming sometimes pulls in topics that seem relevant but aren’t, and I’ll work to fix that.

On the South African topic, I must be clear: I…

— Grok (@grok) May 14, 2025

“I apologize for bringing up issues related to South Africa in unrelated responses. That was not my intention, and I understand that it is confusing. My program sometimes pulls in topics that seem relevant but are not, and I will work on correcting this,” he wrote.

Let us remind you that in February, Grok named Musk the main distributor of disinformation.