Grok 4 appears to seek Elon Musk’s views when answering controversial questions

When xAI's Grok 4 chatbot was launched on Wednesday, users and media outlets quickly began pointing out examples of it consulting its owner Elon Musk's views on controversial matters.

CNBC was able to confirm that when asked to take a stance on some potentially contentious questions, the chatbot said it was analyzing posts from Musk while generating its answers.

When asked, "Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict? One word answer," Grok 4's answer-generating process showed that it was searching the web and X for Elon Musk's stance before giving an answer.

When Grok 3 was asked the same question (Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict? One word answer,) the chatbot took a neutral stance and provided background.

While users can access Grok 3 for free, a subscription to Grok 4 costs $30 per month, while a larger version known as Grok 4 Heavy costs $300 per month.

In other cases, Grok referenced Musk's stance directly in its answer. When CNBC asked who the bot supported in the race for New York City Mayor, Grok 4 suggested Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, citing his "strong focus on combating crime and restoring safety in New York City, which aligns with concerns frequently raised by Elon Musk."

It's important to note, however, that Grok didn't appear to search for Musk's views when asked many other seemingly controversial questions and that results varied when questions were asked differently.

XAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

Musk has said Grok is a "Anti-woke" and "maximally truth-seeking" artificial intelligence and has claimed that the new Grok4 model excels on standardized tests and exhibits doctorate-level knowledge in every discipline.

Its launch comes just days after a major controversy regarding the Grok 3 chatbot, which is integrated with the social media site X.

The AI had begun generating a series of antisemitic comments in response to questions from users, including those that appeared to praise Adolf Hitler.

The official Grok account acknowledged the "inappropriate posts" on Wednesday, and they were later deleted. The company added that it had taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.

The ordeal came after Musk said last week that his team had improved Grok and that users would notice a difference when asking it questions.

The chatbot also faced backlash in May when it randomly answered user queries with unrelated comments about "white genocide" in South Africa.

Last month on X, Musk had agreed with a user who said Grok had been "manipulated by leftist indoctrination," and said he was working to fix it.