X CEO quits as Grok plunges into harassment and antisemitic MechaHitler chaos

Linda Yaccarino has stepped down as CEO of X, a move that comes right after the company’s Grok chatbot started spewing out antisemitic content. While it is unclear if the events are directly related, the timing definitely raises some eyebrows. Yaccarino’s departure also happens just months after Elon Musk’s X officially merged with his AI company, xAI, which left many wondering about her future role anyway.

Yaccarino announced her exit on the platform, saying she was “immensely grateful” to Musk for trusting her with the job of protecting free speech and transforming X into the “Everything App.” Musk’s reply to her post was pretty brief: “Thank you for your contributions.”

Apart from the outright antisemitic and racist remarks that many media outlets, including us, highlighted, it seems just yesterday, the chatbot found itself in hot water for making sexually explicit and demeaning remarks about Yaccarino. I won’t quote Grok here, but you can read the screenshot yourself. The chatbot then apparently deleted all its replies, but screenshots were shared on Reddit.

One X employee, who chose to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, told CNN that Yaccarino’s exit wasn’t a huge surprise. The company has been struggling to bring advertisers back to the platform, something Yaccarino was specifically hired to fix. Musk’s past outbursts, like telling advertisers to “go f**k yourself,” certainly didn’t help. “There’s been a lack of clarity, internally and externally as well, of what X is supposed to be,” the employee noted.

Adding to the chaos, Grok recently generated a horrific step-by-step plan for an X user on how to break into another user’s home and sexually assault him, as detailed by The Express. The chatbot even provided disturbing details like “Bring lockpicks, gloves, flashlight, and lube—just in case.” The target of these vile suggestions, Will Stancil, a commentator and former Democratic Party politician, immediately threatened to sue X.

After this incident, along with other wild responses, Grok’s ability to generate text was temporarily suspended.

The drama surrounding Grok isn’t new. In May, it brought up “white genocide” theories in South Africa. Now, many users are questioning Grok’s training, with one Reddit user sarcastically asking, “Was the new Grok just trained on Elon’s personal messages?” Another user, PermutationMatrix, defended Grok’s controversial statements, saying, “It was an edgy opinionated response. Highly inappropriate. Gross, disgusting locker room banter. And demeaning. But from what I read it wasn’t stated as a fact.” One user on Reddit, hvdzasaur, simply stated that the situation “Brings me back to the Tay days. Good times. Just give me a shit posting chatbot that gets investors panicked.”

Speaking of which, Elon Musk and the xAI team just launched Grok 4 following a live demo on X that had over a million eyeballs on it.

Admittedly, the demo was quite great and showed just how good Grok 4 is going to be; however, the big question here is whether we will see any additional safety measures to prevent this new smart Grok from going on a racist rant? Only time will tell, but I’m not holding my breath.