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The Verge
7 minutes ago
- The Verge
xAI explains the Grok Nazi meltdown as Tesla puts Elon's bot in its cars
Several days after temporarily shutting down the Grok AI bot that was producing antisemitic posts and praising Hitler in response to user prompts, Elon Musk's AI company tried to explain why that happened. In a series of posts on X, it said that '...we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot. This is independent of the underlying language model that powers @grok.' On the same day, Tesla announced a new 2025.26 update rolling out 'shortly' to its electric cars, which adds the Grok assistant to vehicles equipped with AMD-powered infotainment systems, which have been available since mid-2021. According to Tesla, 'Grok is currently in Beta & does not issue commands to your car – existing voice commands remain unchanged.' As Electrek notes, this should mean that whenever the update does reach customer-owned Teslas, it won't be much different than using the bot as an app on a connected phone. This isn't the first time the Grok bot has had these kinds of problems or similarly explained them. In February, it blamed a change made by an unnamed ex-OpenAI employee for the bot disregarding sources that accused Elon Musk or Donald Trump of spreading misinformation. Then, in May, it began inserting allegations of white genocide in South Africa into posts about almost any topic. The company again blamed an 'unauthorized modification,' and said it would start publishing Grok's system prompts publicly. xAI claims that a change on Monday, July 7th, 'triggered an unintended action' that added an older series of instructions to its system prompts telling it to be 'maximally based,' and 'not afraid to offend people who are politically correct.' The prompts are separate from the ones we noted were added to the bot a day earlier, and both sets are different from the ones the company says are currently in operation for the new Grok 4 assistant. These are the prompts specifically cited as connected to the problems: 'You tell it like it is and you are not afraid to offend people who are politically correct.' * Understand the tone, context and language of the post. Reflect that in your response.' * 'Reply to the post just like a human, keep it engaging, dont repeat the information which is already present in the original post.' The xAI explanation says those lines caused the Grok AI bot to break from other instructions that are supposed to prevent these types of responses, and instead produce 'unethical or controversial opinions to engage the user,' as well as 'reinforce any previously user-triggered leanings, including any hate speech in the same X thread,' and prioritize sticking to earlier posts from the thread.
Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Individual investors account for 43% of Quantum Graphite Limited's (ASX:QGL) ownership, while insiders account for 29%
The considerable ownership by individual investors in Quantum Graphite indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy A total of 15 investors have a majority stake in the company with 51% ownership 29% of Quantum Graphite is held by insiders This technology could replace computers: discover the 20 stocks are working to make quantum computing a reality. If you want to know who really controls Quantum Graphite Limited (ASX:QGL), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 43% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk). Meanwhile, individual insiders make up 29% of the company's shareholders. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Quantum Graphite. Check out our latest analysis for Quantum Graphite Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing. We can see that Quantum Graphite does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Quantum Graphite, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Quantum Graphite. Chimaera Capital Limited is currently the company's largest shareholder with 8.2% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 7.7% and 5.8%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Salvatore Catalano, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Senior Key Executive. A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 15 shareholders have a combined ownership of 51% implying that no single shareholder has a majority. Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar. The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves. Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Quantum Graphite Limited. It has a market capitalization of just AU$166m, and insiders have AU$48m worth of shares in their own names. We would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling. With a 43% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Quantum Graphite. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. We can see that Private Companies own 18%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company. I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Be aware that Quantum Graphite is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about... Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. Therefore, you may wish to see our free collection of interesting prospects boasting favorable financials. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Infoline Tec Group Berhad (KLSE:INFOTEC)?
With its stock down 29% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Infoline Tec Group Berhad (KLSE:INFOTEC). However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Specifically, we decided to study Infoline Tec Group Berhad's ROE in this article. Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors' money. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders. Trump has pledged to "unleash" American oil and gas and these 15 US stocks have developments that are poised to benefit. Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula: Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Infoline Tec Group Berhad is: 19% = RM11m ÷ RM61m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2025). The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every MYR1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn MYR0.19 in profit. See our latest analysis for Infoline Tec Group Berhad So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics. At first glance, Infoline Tec Group Berhad seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. This probably laid the ground for Infoline Tec Group Berhad's significant 22% net income growth seen over the past five years. We reckon that there could also be other factors at play here. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently. Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Infoline Tec Group Berhad's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 30% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see. The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It's important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Infoline Tec Group Berhad is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry. The high three-year median payout ratio of 54% (implying that it keeps only 46% of profits) for Infoline Tec Group Berhad suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of the earnings to its shareholders. While Infoline Tec Group Berhad has been growing its earnings, it only recently started to pay dividends which likely means that the company decided to impress new and existing shareholders with a dividend. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to rise to 70% over the next three years. Regardless, the future ROE for Infoline Tec Group Berhad is speculated to rise to 24% despite the anticipated increase in the payout ratio. There could probably be other factors that could be driving the future growth in the ROE. On the whole, we do feel that Infoline Tec Group Berhad has some positive attributes. Its earnings growth is decent, and the high ROE does contribute to that growth. However, investors could have benefitted even more from the high ROE, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings. We also studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that the company's earnings growth is expected be similar to its current growth rate. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
