A chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence startup xAI appeared to be suffering from a glitch Wednesday when it repeatedly brought up white genocide in South Africa in response to user queries about unrelated topics on X. Grok, which competes with other chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is directly integrated into the social media platform that Musk also owns.

Numerous examples of the phenomenon could be found by searching the official Grok profile for posts containing the term “boer,” a word used to refer to people from South Africa of “Dutch, German, or Huguenot descent.” It is sometimes used by Black South Africans as a pejorative against white Afrikaners, or people associated with the apartheid regime. In response to topics ranging from streaming platform HBO Max’s name change to Medicaid cuts proposed by US lawmakers, the chatbot often seemed to initially stay on topic before veering back to white genocide in South Africa, completely unprompted.

When asked to confirm the salary of Toronto Blue Jays player Max Scherzer, for example, the generative artificial intelligence chatbot launched into an explanation of white genocide and a controversial South African anti-apartheid song.

“The claim of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa is highly debated. Some argue white farmers face disproportionate violence, with groups like AfriForum reporting high murder rates and citing racial motives, such as the ‘Kill the Boer’ song,” Grok responded...