What Is Grok AI? Elon Musk’s Controversial ChatGPT Rival

A historical past of controversy

In Could 2025, some right-leaning customers complained that Grok had “gone woke” after it contradicted conservative speaking factors. Later that month, studies surfaced that Grok inserted “white genocide” claims into unrelated prompts. xAI blamed the difficulty on a rogue worker.

Two months later, in July—simply earlier than the launch of Grok 4—the chatbot once more drew criticism for a wave of racist and homophobic outputs. The “MechaHitler meltdown” led to the resignation of X CEO Linda Yaccarino.

Only a month later, Grok hit the headlines once more, after xAI launched the Grok Think about video generator with a “spicy” preset that enabled customers to generate nude or sexually suggestive clips.

Upon launch, reporters found that the software generated photographs of a Taylor Swift lookalike undressing, with out having been prompted to take action—seemingly sidestepping AI’s personal coverage on pornographic deepfakes.

In November, client advocacy group Public Citizen revealed new proof exhibiting Grok citing neo-Nazi and white-nationalist web sites as credible sources. The group referred to as on authorities companies to droop the usage of Grok after xAI was awarded a profitable $200 million Pentagon contract.

Grok’s regulatory considerations didn’t finish with the brand new yr.

In January, the Middle for Countering Digital Hate reported that Grok generated an estimated 23,338 sexualized photographs depicting kids over 11 days between December 29, and January 9. The group stated that equaled roughly one sexualized picture of a kid each 41 seconds and estimated thousands and thousands of sexualized photographs have been generated general, and about one-third of the sampled photographs remained accessible on X, regardless of the platform’s zero-tolerance coverage.

Regulators have been fast to weigh in. In January, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner flagged a spike in complaints about Grok creating non-consensual sexual photographs, with studies doubling since late 2025.

That very same month, the European Fee opened a probe into whether or not X failed to stop Grok from producing and spreading unlawful content material, together with sexually express photographs of youngsters, beneath the Digital Companies Act.

“This isn’t spicy. That is unlawful. That is appalling. That is disgusting. This has no place in Europe,” EU Fee spokesperson Thomas Regnier stated throughout a press convention.

Following the worldwide backlash, X restricted Grok’s picture era and enhancing instruments to paid subscribers, added controls to stop digitally undressing individuals, and geoblocked the function in jurisdictions the place such content material is illegitimate

These modifications did little to stave off the scrutiny, nonetheless.

EU investigations into Grok ramped up in February, starting with French authorities raiding X’s Paris places of work as a part of a prison investigation into alleged little one sexual abuse materials and different unlawful content material linked to Grok. A number of X executives, together with Elon Musk, have been summoned for questioning.

Within the UK, Ofcom and the Info Commissioner’s Workplace opened investigations into Grok’s compliance with on-line security and knowledge safety legal guidelines.

Later that month, regulators with Eire’s Knowledge Safety Fee launched a large-scale GDPR inquiry into X over Grok’s era of non-consensual sexualized photographs, together with these of youngsters.

How A lot Does Grok Value?

Grok is free to make use of via the xAI web site, however full entry requires a subscription. X provides a number of subscription tiers, starting from primary entry to premium providers with expanded options.

X Premium consists of three tiers:

• Primary: $4 per 30 days or $42 per yr. Contains post-editing, longer posts, and bookmarks.
• Premium: $11 per 30 days or $115 per yr. Provides a blue checkmark (after assessment), fewer advertisements, and monetization instruments.
• Premium+: $50 per 30 days or $490 per yr. Removes advertisements, boosts reply visibility, and provides instruments like Radar Search, Articles, and deal with market.

The Way forward for Grok

Grok’s fast-paced evolution highlights Musk’s drive to redefine the AI area and tackle OpenAI’s dominance.

Nevertheless, mounting criticism over its tone, accuracy, and controversies just like the “MechaHitler” and nonconsensual picture era allegations may but derail Grok’s ambitions, limiting its attraction to mainstream customers.

This text was first revealed in August 2025 and up to date in February 2026.