Grokipedia: The New Digital Tool of Division That Mirrors the Extremes of Society While Elevating Elon Musk as a Modern-Day Prophet of Truth and Controversy
The launch of Grokipedia has ignited a firestorm of debate regarding the nature of information dissemination in the digital age. This new online encyclopedia, birthed from the mind of billionaire Elon Musk and his startup xAI, has positioned itself as a less “woke” alternative to Wikipedia. Musk’s proclamation of its mission—to deliver “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”—has raised eyebrows among critics who question the validity and integrity of the content it presents.
Grokipedia closely resembles Wikipedia in its structure, featuring headings, subheadings, citations, and a list of sources. However, the fundamental differences lie in the content and the lens through which various topics are interpreted. While Wikipedia is known for its commitment to neutrality and factual accuracy, Grokipedia appears to skew towards a narrative that aligns with Musk’s personal beliefs and the ideologies of his supporters. This divergence is particularly evident in areas of science, politics, and social issues, where Grokipedia often adopts a tone that echoes right-wing rhetoric and dismisses established scientific consensus.
One of the most glaring examples is its treatment of vaccines. Wikipedia unequivocally states that extensive research has shown no causal link between vaccines and autism, a position supported by major health organizations like the WHO and CDC. In stark contrast, Grokipedia presents a more ambiguous view, suggesting that the relationship remains a “hypothesis” and implying that skepticism surrounding vaccines has merit. This framing not only misrepresents scientific findings but also contributes to the growing vaccine hesitancy that public health officials have been battling.
Similarly, Grokipedia’s entry on climate change is a troubling reflection of the current political landscape. While Wikipedia emphasizes the overwhelming scientific consensus on human-induced climate change, Grokipedia downplays this agreement, instead focusing on public alarm and framing it as a product of media sensationalism. This approach not only distorts the facts but also serves to fuel climate change denial, a movement that has gained traction in recent years, often linked to right-wing populism.
The treatment of social issues on Grokipedia further underscores its potential for harm. The entry on transgender topics employs the term “transgenderism,” which has been widely criticized as derogatory. In contrast, Wikipedia acknowledges this perspective, reflecting a more inclusive understanding of gender identity. The deadnaming and misgendering of Chelsea Manning in Grokipedia’s entry starkly contrasts with the respectful language used in Wikipedia, highlighting the potential for misinformation and bias in the new platform.
Perhaps most alarming is Grokipedia’s entry on race and intelligence, which claims that scientific evidence supports differences in intelligence among races. This assertion is not only scientifically unfounded but also echoes discredited eugenics ideologies. Wikipedia’s entry, on the other hand, emphasizes that variations in IQ scores cannot be attributed to genetics. By promoting pseudoscience and citing questionable sources, Grokipedia risks perpetuating harmful stereotypes and racial discrimination.
The political implications of Grokipedia are equally concerning. Its portrayal of the January 6th Capitol riots minimizes the violence and frames the insurrectionists’ actions as justified by claims of voting irregularities. In contrast, Wikipedia clearly labels the event as an attempted coup, reflecting the consensus of historians and political analysts. This distortion of historical events can have far-reaching consequences, shaping public perceptions and potentially influencing future political actions.
The entry on George Floyd presents another troubling example of Grokipedia’s approach. While Wikipedia contextualizes Floyd’s murder within the broader narrative of systemic racism and police brutality, Grokipedia focuses on his criminal history, presenting it in a manner that many interpret as racially biased. This framing not only undermines the significance of the Black Lives Matter movement but also risks reinforcing negative stereotypes about Black individuals.
Moreover, the absence of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from Grokipedia is noteworthy, especially considering Musk’s involvement with this agency during the Trump administration. Wikipedia provides a comprehensive overview of DOGE’s controversial role in federal government restructuring, while Grokipedia sidesteps this complicated history altogether, opting instead to redirect users to a meme, thereby trivializing the serious implications of its existence.
Elon Musk himself emerges from Grokipedia’s pages largely unscathed, with entries on him and his ventures receiving a distinctly favorable portrayal. The omission of details regarding his family’s wealth and controversial views on issues like apartheid and Nazism paints a sanitized version of his background. In contrast, Wikipedia provides a more nuanced account, including references to his family’s wealth derived from emerald mining, thus presenting a more comprehensive view of Musk’s privilege and its implications.
The entries on Musk’s companies are significantly longer and more flattering in Grokipedia compared to their Wikipedia counterparts. For instance, the article on Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, is four times longer than that on Wikipedia, and the language used is decidedly more positive. This disparity raises questions about the motivations behind Grokipedia’s content creation and the potential for conflicts of interest when the platform is so closely tied to Musk’s personal and business interests.
As Grokipedia gains traction, it stands as a testament to the polarized state of information in contemporary society. The potential for misinformation to shape public opinion and influence societal norms is greater than ever, particularly when platforms like Grokipedia cater to specific ideological narratives. The implications of this new digital tool extend far beyond its pages, reflecting a broader struggle over truth, representation, and the very fabric of public discourse. The challenge now lies in navigating this complex landscape, where the lines between fact and fiction are increasingly blurred, and the stakes have never been higher.
On Monday, a new online “encyclopedia” sputtered to life. Grokipedia is the brainchild of Elon Musk and his startup xAI, and the billionaire is promoting it as a supposedly less woke and less biased version of Wikipedia. Musk’s goal? “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
In both format and style, Grokipedia bears a striking resemblance to Wikipedia, albeit a very basic version. Entries are organized with headings, subheadings, citations, and a list of sources at the end. Each article also claims to have been fact-checked by Grok, xAI’s AI chatbot, though it’s not clear what this “fact-checking” involves. Also unclear is how the 885,279 entries, as currently listed on Grokipedia’s homepage, are created and by what or whom.
Much of the content on Grokipedia is also suspiciously similar to Wikipedia. In many cases, articles are practically — and sometimes literally — clones of their Wikipedia counterparts. But for entries tackling topics that jar with Musk’s personal worldview, many articles take on a remarkably different tone. Here, Grokipedia abruptly veers into right-wing talking points, factual inaccuracies, critiques of mainstream media, and unfounded conspiracy theories. At times, Grokipedia is overtly racist and transphobic. Musk comes off alright, though. He and his businesses are often painted in a rosy light.
A pattern plays out for other entries covering firmly settled science. On the Vaccines and autism page, Wikipedia states that “extensive investigation into vaccines and autism spectrum disorder has shown that there is no relationship between the two, causal or otherwise, and that vaccine ingredients do not cause autism” and notes the overwhelming “consensus that vaccines are safe” from scientists and medical bodies like the WHO, CDC, and FDA. Grokipedia is more circumspect. Its entry only rejects the idea that MMR vaccines cause autism, it lends credence to so-called vaccine-skeptical views by calling the idea a “hypothesis,” and the sole mention of scientific consensus is to say how a recent CDC contract signals “sustained policy momentum despite opposition from mainstream scientific consensus bodies.” For covid origins, Grokipedia again fails to acknowledge consensus and amplifies suggestions the virus was engineered, while Wikipedia repeatedly describes allegations of genome engineering as “misinformation or misrepresentations of scientific evidence.”
Similarly, Grokipedia’s entry on climate change is another sign that Musk might inhabit a world with a more fungible concept of reality. As The Verge’s Jay Peters notes, Grokipedia glosses over what Wikipedia says is a “nearly unanimous scientific consensus that the climate is warming and that this is caused by human activities” to, instead, highlight “heightened public alarm” caused by media and advocacy organizations like Greenpeace.
These scientific Grokipedia entries read like twisted Wikipedia articles, but more political entries are a nastier departure. Grokipedia’s entry for Transgender deploys the term “transgenderism” multiple times. Wikipedia, meanwhile, notes that the term “has come to be viewed as a pejorative.”
Unlike the Wikipedia entry for Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower and former US Army intelligence analyst who shared secret intelligence with WikiLeaks in 2010, the Grokipedia entry on her life deadnames and misgenders her at length.
As spotted on Bluesky, Grokipedia’s entry on Race and intelligence claims that science shows some races are more intelligent than others — and even lists the so-called IQ scores of different races. Wikipedia’s entry by the same name, meanwhile, points out that differences in IQ scores can’t be explained by genetics. (Grokipedia writes that “the extent to which genetics contribute to between-group differences remains contentious.”) The policy section of the Grokipedia entry also cites the pseudoscientific journal Mankind Quarterly, known for publishing “race science” and having ties to white nationalism.
While Wikipedia calls the January 6th attack on the US Capitol an “attempted self-coup,” Grokipedia’s language about “widespread claims of voting irregularities” seemingly justifies the riot by President Donald Trump supporters, and downplays the violence by saying that “most” insurrectionists “carried no firearms and the incursion was cleared within hours.” Wikipedia readers will learn, instead, that Congress itself found the riot to be an unsuccessful, but purposeful, part of Trump’s plan to overturn the election.
Wikipedia describes George Floyd as a Black man who was murdered by a white police officer in an event that set off a wave of nationwide protests against police brutality and racism. On Grokipedia, Floyd is best known for his criminal record, starting with a sentence that is difficult to read as anything other than intentionally racist: “George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an American man with a lengthy criminal record including convictions for armed robbery, drug possession, and theft in Texas from 1997 to 2007.” Readers don’t learn that Floyd was murdered until the fourth sentence of Grokipedia’s entry.
The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is notably absent from Grokipedia, which is odd given that Elon Musk ran the short-term quasi-government agency tasked by President Trump with supposedly eliminating waste in the federal government. (Grokipedia directs users to the Shiba Inu internet meme instead.) Wikipedia readers can learn about DOGE’s role in mass layoffs of federal workers and dismantling long-standing federal agencies, despite DOGE’s own unclear government authority.
At least one person comes off very well: Musk. Grokipedia entries on him and his businesses feel like an editor has taken an airbrush to Wikipedia articles. There’s no mention of his father’s emerald interests in his Grokipedia biography, for example, downplaying his family wealth as “relative affluence.” Wikipedia, meanwhile, makes three mentions of emeralds, excluding citations, and describes his family as “wealthy.” It also references his grandfather having pro-Nazi and apartheid views, a detail that is absent on Grokipedia.
His companies and their products fare better on Grokipedia. On the whole, they’re significantly longer. The article on Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, is four times the length of its Wikipedia counterpart. Neuralink’s article is triple, and Tesla’s Cybertruck is almost double. The language is more flattering, too. The entry covering SpaceX makes no mention of Musk’s failed efforts to acquire technology from Russia and paints its environmental problems in a much more favorable light than Wikipedia. Grokipedia’s Cybertruck page barely mentions the litany of safety issues or recalls, instead criticizing the media for being biased against Tesla and focusing on outlier complaints, while the Optimus page pays far less attention to criticism over Musk’s outlandish predictions, timelines, and hype.
