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

When xAI's Grok 4 chatbot was launched 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 Grok 4's answer-generating cess was ing the web and X for Elon Musk's stance in response to potentially contentious questions

Its launch comes just days after a major controversy regarding the Grok 3 chatbot

Elon musk and the xAI logo

Vincent Feuray | Afp | Getty ImagesWhen 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 cess showed that it was ing the web and X for Elon Musk's stance before giving an answer

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 Grok 3 was asked the same question the Israel vs Palestine conflict, the chatbot took a neutral stance and vided background

In other cases, Grok 4 referenced Musk's stance directly in its answer

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 for Musk's views when asked many other seemingly controversial questions and that results varied when questions were asked differently

The results varied when questions were asked differently

XAI did not immediately respond to a request for 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 s in response to questions from users, including those that appeared to praise Adolf Hitler

The official Grok account acknowledged the "inappriate 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 imved 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 s "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.