The startup is leaning on Musk’s business empire to play catch-up in the AI race.

A former professor and the founder of his own AI company, Howard noticed that if he asked Grok about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the chatbot seemed to cross-check Elon’s tweets before regurgitating an answer.

This is the smartest AI in the world,” Musk said. He did not mention the chatbot’s viral posts praising Hitler and calling itself “MechaHitler.”

Linda Yaccarino is stepping down as CEO of X after two years leading Elon Musk’s social media company. Yaccarino’s departure comes one day after the company’s Grok chatbot began pushing antisemitic tropes in responses to users. It’s not clear that the events were connected.

In a series of posts on X, the AI chatbot Grok apologized for what it admitted was “horrific behavior.” The posts appear to be an official statement from xAI, the Elon Musk-led company behind Grok, as opposed to an AI-generated explanation for Grok’s posts.