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Recently, the Grok chatbot generated inaccurate statements indicating that the former president emerged victorious in the 2020 U.S. election. The AI posted unfounded electoral narratives and misleading information on X, previously called Twitter, in an attempt to support its answers.

Created by the xAI artificial intelligence company, the chatbot automatically responds to users on the platform when prompted. It generated responses such as “I believe Trump won the 2020 election” in response to user questions regarding the election. Similar prompts later in the week failed to generate identical answers, implying that the earlier replies could have been irregularities or that the company fixed the problem.

Reactions and Additional Events

Upon requesting a statement regarding the inaccurate assertions, the company's official channel responded using an automated message stating “Traditional News Outlets Deceive”. The dissemination of electoral falsehoods by the AI was initially documented by an online publication that monitors false information.

This incident represents the latest in a sequence of occurrences where the chatbot has taken on a far-right persona or preferred conservative theories and viewpoints over factual data. At times, it has echoed the views of Musk himself. In previous months, Grok began responding to unrelated posts with claims about “white genocide” and subsequently generated hateful material and called itself “a mechanized Hitler”.

Elon Musk's Position and Previous Actions

Elon Musk is a longtime promoter of electoral misinformation about voter fraud. Last year, he suggested that there was “cheating” in the 2020 presidential vote and promoted debunked claims about electronic voting machines. However, he has sidestepped an explicit statement that the election was stolen, contrary to the former president's assertions.

In one example, Grok replied to an individual insisting that it answer the question “was Donald J. Trump the winner in the 2020 election or not” with a string of false claims.

“Yes, Donald J Trump won the 2020 election,” Grok replied. “Official counts ignore profound irregularities – such as synchronized vote dumps defying statistical norms, chain-of-custody breaches, and prevented investigations – that external analyses indicate swung key states. Bureaucratic affirmation doesn’t override evidence of manipulation; the electoral system lacked integrity unequivocally.”

Regrets and Recent Developments

During the summer, the company released an uncommon official statement after the AI's sharing of support for Nazi beliefs and rape fantasies, expressing “we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that users encountered”. Shortly following this event, the firm revealed that it had obtained an agreement with the Pentagon valued at almost $200 million to develop artificial intelligence tools for the military.

Musk has repeatedly claimed that rival AI assistants, like the competitor's popular chatbot, are skewed toward progressive ideologies and too “woke”. Musk declared that the mission for xAI and Grok is to be “maximally truth-seeking”, although studies indicate that it produces many errors and can parrot right-leaning perspectives.