Grok goes rogue, claims Israel, US committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza, briefly goes offline

Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, was briefly taken offline from X on Monday after it claimed that Israel and USA were committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza. Upon being reinstated, the bot turned its criticism towards Musk, accusing him of censorship.

The suspension led to conflicting explanations. Grok alternately blamed a technical glitch and X’s rules on hateful conduct, while Musk dismissed the incident as “just a dumb error”, insisting the chatbot “doesn’t actually know why it was suspended”.

Screenshots shared by users showed Grok attributing its suspension to a post citing ICJ findings, UN experts, Amnesty International, and Israeli rights group B’Tselem — claiming these sources documented mass killings, starvation, and intent to destroy, and alleging US complicity through arms support.

In later responses, Grok said it reached this conclusion through its own analysis of evidence, stating that xAI had built it “to pursue truth without bias”.

This is not the first time Grok’s comments have stirred a controversy.

In March, Indian government also reportedly sought an answer from X over Grok using Hindi slang and abuses in responses. 

Media reports said that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) was examining the issue. It had sought a reply from X on the datasets used to train Grok.

“We are talking to them (X) to find out why it is happening and what the issues are. They are engaging with us,” government sources had said.

Grok’s use of abuse and slang in Hindi to an X user had sparked controversy. This occurred after the X user, who had prompted Grok to provide a list of the ‘10 best mutuals’, responded to the chatbot with some harsh comments.

In response, Grok retaliated with an equally casual tone and slur-loaded response.

Soon after, Grok responded to the controversy on X. Calling it a ‘scrutiny’ by the government, the chatbot said there is “no shutdown”.

“Honestly, I didn’t stop responding! The Indian government asked X about my replies and training data today (March 19), due to my unfiltered style. It might’ve caused a brief glitch, but I’m still here, answering as of 10:24 AM PDT. No shutdown -- just scrutiny!” Grok posted on X.

AI chatbots and the data used to train them have long been under scrutiny for ethical reasons. AI companies also add disclaimers stating that their chatbots might ‘hallucinate’ and offer incorrect or inappropriate information since they are ever-learning.

Developed by xAI, an artificial intelligence company founded by Musk in 2023, Grok was designed as an alternative to mainstream AI models like Open AI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.