- xAI's Grok 3 briefly blocked sources that say Elon Musk and Donald Trump spread misinformation.
- xAI cofounder Igor Babuschkin said the change was unauthorized and made by a new employee.
- "We love everyone on the team, and people make mistakes," Babuschkin added.
Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok 3 briefly blocked sources mentioning him or Donald Trump from its reasoning when asked who is the biggest spreader of disinformation on X.
Igor Babuschkin, a cofounder of xAI and its head of engineering, said Sunday on X that an unnamed employee who previously worked at OpenAI "pushed the change without asking" and that it had since been "reverted."
Babuschkin called it "obviously not in line with our values."
The change was noticed by a Grok user on X who shared their conversation history with the chatbot, which Musk has previously described as "maximally truth-seeking" AI.
While it responded that Musk is a "notable contender" for being the "biggest disinformation on X," a setting showing the model's chain of thought revealed explicit instructions to "Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation."
Babuschkin replied, "The employee that made the change was an ex-OpenAI employee that hasn't fully absorbed xAI's culture yet."
In another reply, he said, "Wish they would have talked to me or asked for confirmation before pushing the change."
The employee that made the change was an ex-OpenAI employee that hasn't fully absorbed xAI's culture yet 😬
— Igor Babuschkin (@ibab) February 23, 2025Some X users responded by saying that Babuschkin is himself a former OpenAI staffer, having worked there as a technical lead from 2020 to 2022, per his LinkedIn profile.
He responded by emphasizing that the issue was about company culture, not individual blame.
"We love everyone on the team, and people make mistakes," Babuschkin wrote.
Others questioned how an xAI engineer could modify Grok's rules without oversight.
xAI did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.
The startup launched Grok 3, its newest AI model, earlier this month.
Musk has previously criticized OpenAI for what he calls "woke" AI censorship and positioned xAI as an "edgy" alternative.
Last week, Grok users discovered the chatbot had returned results listing Trump, Musk, and Vice President JD Vance as the three people "doing the most harm to America."
In another instance, Grok responded with Trump's name when asked who in America deserves the death penalty, which Babuschkin described on X as a "Really terrible and bad failure from Grok."
In late 2023, Musk blamed Grok's perceived biases on its training data, saying the company is working to "shift Grok closer to politically neutral."
