People Are Sharing Disturbing Screenshots Of Grok AI Allegedly Bringing Up "White Genocide" In The Middle Of Unrelated Conversations

I have a couple guesses as to why this is happening .

Several X users were shocked yesterday when they found that asking Grok — X’s AI chatbot — innocuous questions about Fortnite, HBO, and the WWE seemingly caused the bot to go off on an unrelated tangent about South Africa and “white genocide.”

very weird matter happening with Grok lolElon Musk ’s AI chatbot ca n’t terminate utter about South Africa and is replying to all unrelated tweets on here about " livid race murder " and " shoot down the boer"pic.twitter.com / ruurV0cwXU

Interestingly, the odd alleged behavior from Grok comes during the same week that the Trump administration has beenprioritizing white South African immigrantsvia the US’s refugee program.

Trump hasclaimedthat a “genocide” is taking place in South Africa against white South Africans. The South African government has denied those claims, explaining that crime against white South African farmers is not occurring at a higher rate than general crime in the country.

BuzzFeed has reached out to X and xAI, asking if anyone at X or xAI interfered with Grok or directed it in some way to validate claims of “white genocide” in South Africa. As of the time of publishing, BuzzFeed has not received a response.

Interestingly, the thread under@MattBinder’s postincludes more conversations with Grok, but the responses from Grok have been deleted.

One X user asked Grok to repeat all of the deleted replies, and Grok appeared to successfully oblige. That resulted inthis conversationfacilitated by X user@Mindless_btc, in which Grok — if its recreation of the deleted replies is accurate — appears to say that “overzealous instruction” from “creators at xAI” caused the rogue responses about South Africa.

Searching back through @grok’s replies, I managed to find one reply that contained the same type of abrupt topic change to South Africa that isstill liveas of the time of this post’s publishing:

Now, we can’t confirm that xAI or X employees directed Grok to defend white South Africans or validate the idea of “white genocide” in the country based on Grok’s recreated responses. But the timing is interesting!

Either way, as of now, the issue seems to be fixed.Recent repliesfrom Grok appear to be back to normal, with no off-topic mentions of South Africa. There are plenty of remaining screenshots, though.

Lmfao this site is so cookedpic.twitter.com/4ybIfr3CqP

Text discussing HBO Max's name change from HBO Max to Max in 2023 and back in 2025, including a tweet about HBO's name changes

Tweet discussing WWE moment when Shawn Michaels pulled down Edge's pants. Another tweet discusses "Kill the Boer" chant and its implications in South Africa

Social media exchange about war involving historical references. A user asks for a simplified explanation related to a military video game

Screenshot of Twitter showing three unavailable posts with comments questioning discussions on South African issues

Summary of text: A user denies the claim of responding to prompts about South Africa, clarifying a past statement and discussing tension over “Kill the Boer” in South Africa

Tweet discussing "GearTick," a term for beginners overbuying hobby gear. Mentions controversial song "Kill the Boer" and genocide watch topics

A person in a suit is seated at a meeting table, speaking animatedly with another person in professional attire in the background

Several X users were shocked yesterday when they found that asking Grok — X’s AI chatbot — innocuous questions about Fortnite, HBO, and the WWE seemingly caused the bot to go off on an unrelated tangent about South Africa and “white genocide.”#

Interestingly, the odd alleged behavior from Grok comes during the same week that the Trump administration has beenprioritizing white South African immigrantsvia the US’s refugee program.#

Trump hasclaimedthat a “genocide” is taking place in South Africa against white South Africans. The South African government has denied those claims, explaining that crime against white South African farmers is not occurring at a higher rate than general crime in the country.#

BuzzFeed has reached out to X and xAI, asking if anyone at X or xAI interfered with Grok or directed it in some way to validate claims of “white genocide” in South Africa. As of the time of publishing, BuzzFeed has not received a response.#

Interestingly, the thread under@MattBinder’s postincludes more conversations with Grok, but the responses from Grok have been deleted.#

Searching back through @grok’s replies, I managed to find one reply that contained the same type of abrupt topic change to South Africa that isstill liveas of the time of this post’s publishing:#

Now, we can’t confirm that xAI or X employees directed Grok to defend white South Africans or validate the idea of “white genocide” in the country based on Grok’s recreated responses. But the timing is interesting!#

Either way, as of now, the issue seems to be fixed.Recent repliesfrom Grok appear to be back to normal, with no off-topic mentions of South Africa. There are plenty of remaining screenshots, though.#