Elon Musk, who earlier this year served as the head of the Trump administration’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), has launched a new project reflecting his right-wing political alliances: an AI-driven encyclopedia named Grokipedia.
The new platform is Musk’s declared rival to Wikipedia. Musk, who was named the most disliked public figure in the U.S. by a Gallup poll in August, has long attacked Wikipedia for citing “mainstream media.” Grokipedia is his AI-powered solution, “fact-checked” by his chatbot, Grok.
The encyclopedia, which was suggested to Musk by Trump’s former AI czar David Sacks, abandons Wikipedia’s human volunteer model. Instead, it relies entirely on AI, which has resulted in content that hews closely to conservative talking points.
A clear example is the Grokipedia entry for the January 6 Capitol riot. It introduces the debunked lie of “widespread claims of voting irregularities” as a valid point of discussion. It also minimizes Donald Trump’s role in inciting the riot and casts doubt on the event’s nature, calling it an “enduring dispute.”
The AI-generated content is already being criticized for containing blatant falsehoods. Journalists have noted an entry incorrectly claims that pornography worsened the Aids epidemic, raising immediate red flags about the platform’s credibility as a source of information.
