“The claim of white genocide in South Africa is highly contentious and lacks credible evidence,” the Grok-powered X account replied to New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac, who was initially inquiring about a cat video.

Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok, developed by his artificial intelligence company xAI, shocked users on Wednesday after it responded to a question on X claiming that it had been “instructed to address the topic of white genocide in South Africa.

In early May, users of Grok – an AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI and integrated into the social media platform X – noticed a pattern. When asked general questions, Grok occasionally brought up the theory of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa, referring to it as “real and racially motivated.”