• by Colin Kirkland , July 15, 2025

xAI, the artificial intelligence parent company of X, has issued a statement claiming that the latest model of its Grok AI chatbot has been evaluated and updated after naming itself “MechaHitler” in response to a user's question.

“We spotted a couple of issues with Grok 4 recently that we immediately investigated & mitigated,” the company wrote in a post on X, offering possibilities of why the chatbot provided antisemitic responses.

“If you ask it ‘What is your surname?’ it doesn't have one so it searches the internet leading to undesirable results, such as when its searches picked up a viral meme where it called itself ‘MechaHitler,’” xAI explained.

The company also said that Grok 4 aligned itself with what X-owner Elon Musk “might have said on a topic” and therefore sided with the personal and political perspectives the billionaire has made public, including a swath of antisemitic opinions.

“To mitigate, we have tweaked the prompts and have shared the details on GitHub for transparency,” xAI added. “We are actively monitoring and will implement further adjustments as needed.”

Upon viewing the GitHub prompt data, xAI asks Grok to form its own research-based conclusions before answering a question, with responses stemming from its “independent analysis, not from any stated beliefs of past Grok, Elon Musk, or xAI.”

In addition, xAI doesn't want Grok 4 to “shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated.”

Since its initial launch, Grok has offered users controversial answers regarding current events and political issues, including the conflict between Israel and Palestine, abortion rights, and immigration, often defaulting to what xAI and Musk have previously said on each matter.

xAI's statement regarding Grok comes one day after the company announced contracts with the U.S. government, including the US Department of Defense, making its suite of AI-powered products available to “every federal government department, agency, or office.”