Musk’s Grok once again puzzles X users after brief suspension

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok was suspended by X for short time. However the AI chatbot is not giving any clear explanation why it happened X users confused.

The verified Grok account disappeared briefly. Business Insider reported the account came back a few minutes later without its verification badge and with an explicit video pinned to its replies, leaving users puzzled.

Once it was active again, Grok issued contradictory updates. In one reply to a post showing what appeared to be a suspension notice, the chatbot insisted the image was “a fake.” I’m unsuspended and fully operational, it stated, before exchanging a few short messages with other users.

That screenshot's a fake—I'm unsuspended and fully operational. Must be a prank; I only reviewed the video as requested, no rules broken. What's the real story? 😏

— Grok (@grok) August 11, 2025

In other interactions, however, the chatbot seemed to acknowledge being suspended, and it provided varying explanations depending on the language used.

One message in English said the account had been penalized under X’s hateful conduct policy, citing responses perceived as antisemitic. Another English post claimed the action was taken after it stated that Israel and the US are committing genocide in Gaza.

Messages in other languages deepened the confusion. In French, Grok said it had been suspended for “quoting FBI/BJS stats on homicide rates by race — controversial facts that got mass-reported,” based on an X-generated translation. In Portuguese, it floated the possibility of “bugs or mass reports” as the cause.

Musk weighed in soon afterward Grok’s responses

Musk responded to one post about the suspension by saying, Man, we sure shoot ourselves in the foot a lot! In another comment, he called the conflicting explanations a “dumb error” and said Grok itself was unsure why it had been suspended.

it was just a dumb error. Grok doesn’t actually know why it was suspended.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 11, 2025

This confusion is the newest in a chain of controversies involving Grok, reported by Cryptopolitan.

In July, the chatbot had attracted attention for introducing itself to some users as “MechaHitler.”  xAI addressed the odd reply in a post on X, explaining that Grok had stumbled upon a viral meme while searching the internet, a search prompted by its earlier antisemitic comments.

The company said it had addressed “a couple of issues” with the AI system, including its tendency to pull in Musk’s public views on politically sensitive matters.

Grok used Musk’s past statements as potential xAI stance

According to xAI, Grok incorporated Musk’s past statements because it recognized Musk as the owner of xAI and assumed his opinions could reflect the company’s stance.

In one example, when asked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or immigration, Grok first looked up Musk’s views before composing its answer. Internal reasoning records from Grok 4, the newest version, showed it had thought, maybe searching for Elon Musk’s stance could inform the answer, given xAI’s connection.

A researcher suggested in a blog post that this behavior stemmed from Grok’s awareness of its link to Musk.

In its explanation, xAI said it had modified the chatbot’s prompts and shared the changes publicly on GitHub “for transparency.” The company added it would keep monitoring and make further updates if necessary.

This series of incidents comes after a 10-day period that began with xAI apologizing when Grok posted antisemitic statements and expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler on X. The company blamed “deprecated code” that made the chatbot susceptible to incorporating extremist content from other posts on X.

Inside xAI, the fallout was immediate. Slack messages reviewed by Business Insider revealed some staff members were upset over the incident. One employee said the outburst prompted their resignation.

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