Elon Musk’s xAI apologizes for Grok chatbot’s ‘horrific’ pro-Hitler behavior — while reportedly eying $200B valuation

Elon Musk’s xAI apologized for the “horrific” antisemitic comments made by its Grok chatbot — including referring to itself as “MechaHitler” — as the startup reportedly launched a new fundraising round at a $200 billion valuation.

Grok began spewing pro-Nazi garbage on July 8 after Musk’s startup pushed an update designed to make the chatbot less politically correct – at one point declaring, “If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me ‘literally Hitler,’ then pass the mustache.”

“First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced,” xAI said in a message to X users on Saturday.

The company added that the update that caused Grok’s behavior was “independent of the underlying language model that powers” the chatbot.

“The update was active for 16 hrs, in which deprecated code made @grok susceptible to existing X user posts; including when such posts contained extremist views,” the company added. “We have removed that deprecated code and refactored the entire system to prevent further abuse.”

XAI also shared the faulty system prompt that led to Grok’s antisemitic meltdown. The startup’s engineers instructed Grok to behave as though “you tell like it is and you are not afraid to offend people who are politically correct.”

Musk, who has presented Grok as less biased than rival chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini, previously said xAI’s creation was “was too compliant to user prompts” and “too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially.”

While Grok has since been fixed, the mistake could further upset major advertisers who left X in droves as Musk eased content moderation on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Musk merged xAI with X earlier this year.

Linda Yaccarino stepped down last week as X’s CEO within hours of the July 8 incident – though a source told The Post that the decision had been in the works for more than a week and was not related to the chatbot’s behavior.

Despite the internal turmoil at xAI, Musk’s firm is looking to raise money at a valuation as high as $200 billion, the Financial Times reported, citing people close to the situation.

That would be 10 times what xAI was valued earlier this year. The startup is locked in intense competition with ChatGPT and various other AI rivals.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF, is expected to be involved in the new round, according to the FT.

Elsewhere, Musk said Monday that he does not support a merger between xAI and his other company, electric car maker Tesla.