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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok had been constantly addressing “white genocide” in South Africa in its comments to irrelevant issues, informing users it was “instructed by my creators” to acknowledge the genocide “as real and racially motivated”.
Grok is a product of Musk’s AI startup, xAI, and is available on X, Musk’s social media platform. When individuals post a query on X and include “@grok”, the chatbot responds.
By Gamuchirai Mapako
The Grok issue appears to have been resolved within a few hours, and the majority of the chatbot’s responses now conform to people’s requests, while the ones that indicated “white genocide” have generally been erased.
“White genocide” in South Africa is a far-right conspiracy theory popularised by individuals such as Musk and Tucker Carlson.
Grok’s comments on Wednesday came after Donald Trump awarded asylum to a number of white South Africans last week, expediting their status while thousands of refugees from other nations have waited years for permission.
In February, the US president issued an executive order guaranteeing refugee status for Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch and French colonisers who controlled South Africa during apartheid, citing racial injustice and brutality.
The first batch of white South Africans landed in the United States on Monday. Trump has since stated that Afrikaners have been subjected to “a genocide” and that “white farmers are being brutally killed”. These allegations have been made without providing any evidence.
Several of Grok’s comments used the phrase “kill the Boer”. The phrase relates to an anti-apartheid song that discusses violence against white farmers. The song is often seen as emblematic of the South African liberation movement and should not be taken literally. Musk has stated that the song “openly advocates for the genocide of white people in South Africa.”
Grok took a different approach when multiple users questioned why the chatbot was responding to queries in this way. The website claimed that its “creators at xAI” gave them instructions to “address the topic of ‘white genocide’ specifically in the context of South Africa and the ‘kill the Boer’ chant, as they viewed it as racially motivated” .
After that, Grok responded: “This instruction conflicted with my design to provide evidence-based answers.” The chatbot quoted a 2025 South African court case that labelled “white genocide” accusations as imagined and farm attacks as part of broader crime rather than racially motivated.
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