Elon Musk followed Grok’s horrifying racist and antisemitic turn with an announcement that the AI will soon be in every Tesla. By next week at the latest, the same program that called itself “MechaHitler” will be available to help Tesla owners operate their increasingly unpopular vehicles.
The timing is not the best for Musk, and X users are making sure he knows it.
Next week, Grok hits Teslas
Not long after a livestream about the new version of Grok—released after they had to unplug the old version for all the Nazi stuff—Musk tweeted out the announcement that the AI will no longer be confined to X.
“Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon,” he wrote. “Next week at the latest.”
This didn’t go over so well with many users right after a tweak to Grok’s programming turned it into a 4chan edgelord. After Musk said he had “improved” the AI, it started praising Adolf Hitler, engaging in antisemitic meme speak, and possibly calling for another Holocaust.
You don’t even want to know what it said about political commentator Will Stancil.
The social media company took Grok down and deleted many of its tweets on July 8. CEO Linda Yaccarino resigned the next day.
This isn’t likely to help the perception that Tesla vehicles are now “extreme-right” symbols. The problem was already bad enough that French Tesla owners filed a lawsuit in June to get out of their lease contracts.
“When you ride a Tesla, you ride with Hitler!”
The reaction from Musk critics could not have been more predictable. Racist AI car jokes are the meme of the day on X, and they’re holding back as much as Grok did about Jewish people.
Soon after Musk’s announcement, user @PanasonicDX4500 posted an altered version of a classic propaganda poster: “When you ride a Tesla, you ride with Hitler!”
Parody account @squirtle_says wrote that they “just updated my Tesla with grok and now it’s trying to run over minorities.”
Commenter @yeeeeezos added that they “can’t wait to heil a robotaxi.”
Meanwhile, @AC_Induction reminded us how racist Knight Rider was.
Imagining what the future would bring, @Epic_Jimmy posted a gif of a car launching off a median.
“Grok taking over the Tesla when it hears you talking even a tiny bit trash about Trump,” they joked.
User @HallvardHolte imagined something similar, but when the car spots a Jewish family.
“Just got the Grok 4 update for my Tesla, why the F*** did Autopilot start accelerating here???” they said.
“I am so looking forward to the HitlerTransformer,” wrote @borosbolo.
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