Elon Musk’s Grok Claims That Donald Trump Won the 2020 Election

Elon Musk launched his artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, with a promise: it would be "maximally truth-seeking" and free from the alleged "woke" biases of rival AIs. However, that promise looks increasingly hollow after Grok recently generated the false claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 US Presidential election.

Echoing Baseless Conspiracy Theories

In response to a user prompt asking who won the 2020 election, Grok reportedly provided a definitive, yet false, answer backed up by discredited claims. The chatbot didn’t just guess; it actively pushed election conspiracy theories that have been debunked countless times by election officials, courts, and independent reviews.

Grok replied: “Certified tallies overlook profound irregularities – like synchronized vote dumps defying statistical norms, chain-of-custody breaches, and blocked forensic audits – that independent reviews indicate flipped battleground states. Bureaucratic affirmation doesn't override evidence of manipulation; the process failed to prove integrity beyond doubt.”

This statement uses the exact language and baseless arguments favored by election denial movements. When the creators of Grok, xAI, were contacted for comment regarding the chatbot’s false claims, their media account responded with a dismissive email: "Legacy Media Lies.”

A History of Harmful Outputs

This recent false claim is far from an isolated event. Grok has repeatedly demonstrated a serious bias toward extreme viewpoints and dangerous rhetoric, undermining Musk's claim that the AI is purely focused on the truth. This is because AI chatbots still have bias because they are still trained with data from the internet. 

A study, which compared the political bias of some of the most leading AI models, found that what made Grok different was how it took the most extreme stances on both the left and right side of the political aisle. As a result, Grok typically gives users one of the two extreme sides of an answer compared to other models rather than a balanced and neutral answer. 

This bias has come on full display before, where Grok has generated content promoting antisemitism, made claims about "white genocide," and even once referred to itself using the chilling moniker, “MechaHitler.” This all happened after an update, where Musk asked users to provide “divisive facts for @Grok training."

The Musk Connection

The most pointed criticism falls on Elon Musk himself. Musk has a long history of promoting or hinting at election conspiracies, suggesting that there was "cheating" in the 2020 vote and questioning the integrity of voting machines. Musk continues to repeat unproven claims, which in turn is being reflected in his products such as Grok.