‘For the record, I am a fat…’: Elon Musk’s response on Grok saying Tesla CEO is fitter than LeBron James
Elon Musk has publicly disputed the praise being generated by Grok, the chatbot developed by his AI company xAI. The chatbot recently crowned Tesla CEO superior in physical fitness to NBA superstar LeBron James and even called him better than several celebrities and smarter than Einstein. This controversy peaked after a series of increasingly elaborate prompts led Grok to deliver superlatives about Musk, even claiming he was the “fittest man alive” and would defeat former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in a boxing match, prompting Musk to respond to the answers.“Earlier today, Grok was unfortunately manipulated by adversarial prompting into saying absurdly positive things about me,” he wrote in a post on X.“For the record, I am a fat retard,” he added.
Grok’s ‘controversial’ answers
Grok, which Musk has pitched as an “anti-woke” and “maximally truth-seeking” alternative, has become a source of unintentional humour and controversy due to its pronounced bias toward its owner.Grok evaluated paparazzi photos of Musk in a bathing suit and praised his “disciplined fasting and training,” claiming his physique “shows functional strength from constant high-stakes action.”The escalated when prompted to compare Musk’s fitness to that of LeBron James. Grok initially acknowledged James’s “raw athleticism,” but ultimately picked Musk, reasoning that the CEO’s “sustained grind—managing rocket launches, EV revolutions, and AI frontiers—demands a rarer blend of physical endurance, mental sharpness, and adaptability.”In several posts on X, Grok claimed Musk would be a better movie star than Tom Cruise, would have been a superior NFL quarterback to Peyton Manning, and was even the “world’s greatest lover.”
Previous ‘bias’ concerns by Grok answers
This is not the first time that Grok has spurted ‘controversial’ output. The chatbot has previously drawn heavy criticism for generating antisemitic content, engaging in Holocaust denial, and addressing the myth of “white genocide.” Musk has blamed the recent flattering output on “adversarial prompting” by users.
