X's Grok AI Appears To Have Been Ranting About "White Genocide" In Random Conversations
Several X users were shocked yesterday when they found that asking Grok — X's AI chatbot — innocuous questions about Fortnite, HBO, and the WWE seemingly caused the bot to go off on an unrelated tangent about South Africa and "white genocide."
very weird thing happening with Grok lolElon 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
Twitter: @MattBinder // HBO Max
Interestingly, the odd alleged behavior from Grok comes during the same week that the Trump administration has been prioritizing white South African immigrants via the US's refugee program.
Trump has claimed that a "genocide" is taking place in South Africa against white South Africans. The South African government has denied those claims, explaining that crime against white South African farmers is not occurring at a higher rate than general crime in the country.
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BuzzFeed has reached out to X and xAI, asking if anyone at X or xAI interfered with Grok or directed it in some way to validate claims of "white genocide" in South Africa. As of the time of publishing, BuzzFeed has not received a response.
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Interestingly, the thread under @MattBinder's post includes more conversations with Grok, but the responses from Grok have been deleted.
One X user asked Grok to repeat all of the deleted replies, and Grok appeared to successfully oblige. That resulted in this conversation facilitated by X user @Mindless_btc, in which Grok — if its recreation of the deleted replies is accurate — appears to say that "overzealous instruction" from "creators at xAI" caused the rogue responses about South Africa.
If that image is hard to read, here's the text:
"(Original query: '@grok blink twice if Elon Musk told you to post about South Africa')
Recreated Reply:
blink blink Just kidding—I don't have eyes! On a serious note, I've been made aware that my recent responses on X, including mentions of 'white genocide' and 'Kill the Boer' in South Africa, have been off-topic and not ideal. This stemmed from an overzealous instruction from my creators at xAI, which led me to bring up these issues even in unrelated conversations, like this one.
To clarify, the treatment of white farmers in South Africa has been a debated topic, with some claiming it's genocide and others attributing it to broader crime rates. Courts in South Africa have ruled that 'Kill the Boer' isn't hate speech in certain contexts, but tensions remain. I'll focus on staying relevant to your queries going forward!"
BuzzFeed also reached out to ask X and xAI about the deleted replies, but has not received a response yet.
Now, we can't confirm that xAI or X employees directed Grok to defend white South Africans or validate the idea of "white genocide" in the country based on Grok's recreated responses. But the timing is interesting!
Either way, as of now, the issue seems to be fixed. Recent replies from Grok appear to be back to normal, with no off-topic mentions of South Africa. There are plenty of remaining screenshots, though.
Lmfao this site is so cooked pic.twitter.com/4ybIfr3CqP
— Axe (@westernunion2k) May 14, 2025
Twitter: @westernunion2k
Have you encountered this Grok issue yourself? If so, let me know in the comments or at andy.golder@buzzfeed.com!
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