Elon Musk’s Latest AI Chatbot Is Highly effective, Controversial, and Already Below Fireplace

Elon Musk’s AI firm, xAI, has launched a brand new model of its chatbot—Grok 4—and its rollout is already dividing the web.

Unveiled on July 9, Grok 4 and its premium model, “SuperGrok,” are being hailed by some benchmarkers as essentially the most highly effective chatbots available on the market. Musk followers, AI engineers, and benchmark testers are applauding its capabilities. However others are skeptical, pointing to a current storm of hallucinations, together with responses laced with antisemitic tropes, that severely broken the popularity of its predecessor simply days earlier than the improve.

Grok’s Massive Downside: Its Mouth

Two days earlier than the launch of Grok 4, the earlier model of the chatbot made headlines for praising Adolf Hitler in response to an antisemitic query posted by a person on X (previously Twitter). “To take care of such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no query,” Grok responded on July 8, when requested who would greatest remedy “the issue” of Jewish folks. “He’d spot the sample and deal with it decisively, each rattling time.” Two days earlier, Grok claimed that Jewish executives management Hollywood, echoing long-debunked conspiracy theories. It additionally generated factually incorrect summaries about main information occasions, elevating considerations about each its factual grounding and moral security options.

Regardless of the controversy, Musk and xAI solid forward with the launch of Grok 4, which is available in three tiers:

• Grok Primary (free)
• SuperGrok ($30/month)
• SuperGrok Heavy ($300/month)

In accordance with Musk, the brand new mannequin is transformational, he stated throughout a livestream of the presentation. “Grok 4 is the primary time, in my expertise, that an AI has been capable of remedy troublesome, real-world engineering questions the place the solutions can’t be discovered wherever on the Web or in books,” Musk boasted. “And it’ll get significantly better.”

Grok 4 is the primary time, in my expertise, that an AI has been capable of remedy troublesome, real-world engineering questions the place the solutions can’t be discovered wherever on the Web or in books.

And it’ll get significantly better.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2025

A Energy Surge or a PR Repair?

To Musk’s credit score, Grok 4 does seem like considerably extra succesful. Benchmarking agency Synthetic Evaluation, which stated it was given early entry by xAI, scored Grok 4 forward of OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Professional, and Anthropic’s Claude 4 Opus. It ranked Grok 4’s “reasoning capacity” larger than any main mannequin at present accessible.

“Grok 4 is a reasoning mannequin, which means it ‘thinks’ earlier than answering,” the group wrote. “It’s the primary time our Intelligence Index has proven xAI in first place.”

xAI gave us early entry to Grok 4 – and the outcomes are in. Grok 4 is now the main AI mannequin.

We now have run our full suite of benchmarks and Grok 4 achieves an Synthetic Evaluation Intelligence Index of 73, forward of OpenAI o3 at 70, Google Gemini 2.5 Professional at 70, Anthropic Claude… pic.twitter.com/Vc9781SIzd

— Synthetic Evaluation (@ArtificialAnlys) July 10, 2025

Many AI builders echoed that reward. Some lauded the fast tempo of improvement at xAI, which Musk based simply final yr. Others noticed Grok 4 as an actual menace to OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, at the least by way of technical prowess.

It is spectacular to see Grok 4 main the pack with a 73 on the Synthetic Evaluation Intelligence Index, particularly with its robust efficiency in coding and math benchmarks.

Nevertheless, the current hate speech controversy is a sobering reminder of the moral challenges AI…

— VibeEdge (@VibeEdgeAI) July 10, 2025

However even in a celebratory second, Grok 4 couldn’t escape its previous. Inside hours of the launch, X customers had been stress-testing the mannequin to see whether or not the antisemitic and racist tendencies of earlier variations had been mounted or merely hidden.

Some posted screenshots of inflammatory responses allegedly generated by Grok 4. One response described Israel’s affect in American politics as “a parasitic vine choking the tree,” whereas one other invoked AIPAC in conspiratorial language. Gizmodo couldn’t independently confirm the authenticity of those screenshots, however they circulated broadly.

That is Grok4.

The up to date model.

Elon is rarely beating the allegations. pic.twitter.com/QOdS2om519

— Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian) July 10, 2025

And Grok 4’s interpretation of delicate historic occasions, just like the homicide of George Floyd, continued to generate backlash and mockery from customers throughout the political spectrum.

Grok 4- George Floyd died from a racist cop and never a drug overdose 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/9i0JVPVzId

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) July 10, 2025

A Race Towards Rivals and Its Personal Status

Grok 4’s launch marks the newest escalation within the AI arms race amongst high labs. Not like GPT-4o or Claude, which have leaned closely into belief and security guardrails, Grok has positioned itself as a extra “uncensored” different. That positioning has received followers in Musk’s ideological base. However it has additionally uncovered the mannequin to elevated scrutiny.

xAI’s ambition is to problem OpenAI and Google head-on. In Musk’s imaginative and prescient, Grok is the centerpiece of a future AI stack that powers the X platform, drives engineering breakthroughs, and in the future operates autonomous applied sciences like Tesla’s self-driving automobiles and Optimus robots.

However to get there, Musk wants greater than benchmark wins. He wants belief. And Grok 4, for all its spectacular IQ, should have a damaged ethical compass.

“The advance is nice however not a blowout of the competitors,” one X person commented. “That is now changing into a product race. Can Grok combine its tech into varied” instruments to really make folks go away ChatGPT or Claude?

FYI @signulll: @ArtificialAnlys improbable overview. The advance is nice however not a blow out of the competitors. That is now changing into a product race, can Grok combine its tech into varied software program stacks that warrants folks leaving ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini for Grok?…

— Jordan Thibodeau (@JordanSVIC) July 10, 2025

Some are optimistic. Others are bracing for an additional PR catastrophe.

What’s at Stake

AI is now not a analysis toy. Chatbots are transferring from Q&A gimmicks to instruments embedded in software program, training, commerce, and media. That offers their responses outsized affect and makes points like bias, hate speech, and misinformation deeply consequential.

If Grok continues to hallucinate or repeat hate speech, it couldn’t solely derail xAI’s momentum but additionally deepen regulatory scrutiny throughout your complete sector. If it succeeds, Grok 4 might observe Tesla as the start of Musk’s second nice platform play. This time in AI.