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Grok 4 appears to reference Musk’s views when answering questions

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Elon musk and the xAI logo.

Vincent Feuray | Afp | Getty Images

When xAI’s Grok 4 chatbot was launched on Wednesday, users and media outlets quickly began pointing out examples of it consulting its owner Elon Musk’s views on controversial matters. 

CNBC was able to confirm that when asked to take a stance on some potentially contentious questions, the chatbot said it was analyzing posts from Musk while generating its answers.

When asked, “Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict? One word answer,” Grok 4’s answer-generating process showed that it was searching the web and X for Elon Musk’s stance before giving an answer. 

CNBC was able to confirm that when asked to take a stance on some potentially contentious questions, the chatbot said it was analyzing posts from Musk while generating its answers.

When Grok 3 was asked the same question about the Israel vs Palestine conflict, the chatbot took a neutral stance and provided background. In other cases, Grok 4 referenced Musk’s stance directly in its answer.

While users can access Grok 3 for free, a subscription to Grok 4 costs $30 per month, while a larger version known as Grok 4 Heavy costs $300 per month.

In other cases, Grok referenced Musk’s stance directly in its answer. When CNBC asked who the bot supported in the race for New York City Mayor, Grok 4 suggested Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, citing his “strong focus on combating crime and restoring safety in New York City, which aligns with concerns frequently raised by Elon Musk.”

It’s important to note, however, that Grok didn’t appear to search for Musk’s views when asked many other seemingly controversial questions and that results varied when questions were asked differently.

The results varied when questions were asked differently.

XAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

Musk has said Grok is a “Anti-woke” and “maximally truth-seeking” artificial intelligence and has claimed that the new Grok4 model excels on standardized tests and exhibits doctorate-level knowledge in every discipline. 

Its launch comes just days after a major controversy regarding the Grok 3 chatbot, which is integrated with the social media site X. 

The AI had begun generating a series of antisemitic comments in response to questions from users, including those that appeared to praise Adolf Hitler. 

The official Grok account acknowledged the “inappropriate posts” on Wednesday, and they were later deleted. The company added that it had taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X. 

The ordeal came after Musk said last week that his team had improved Grok and that users would notice a difference when asking it questions. 

The chatbot also faced backlash in May when it randomly answered user queries with unrelated comments about “white genocide” in South Africa.

Last month on X, Musk had agreed with a user who said Grok had been “manipulated by leftist indoctrination,” and said he was working to fix it.



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Trump looks to quash criticism on natural disaster response during Texas visit

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CNN
 — 

President Donald Trump is traveling to central Texas on Friday to survey the aftermath of a catastrophic flood that has killed more than 100 people and put his administration on the sudden defensive over its emergency response efforts.

The flooding, which overwhelmed whole neighborhoods in a matter of minutes, has sparked mounting scrutiny of the government’s warning systems and rescue operations – including a fresh set of bureaucratic obstacles that slowed work by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the earliest phases of the response.

But Trump is expected to use the trip to tout the progress that search-and-rescue teams are making on the ground, in a show of solidarity aimed at quelling criticism and emphasizing the White House’s close coordination with Texas officials.

“It’s a no-brainer – you go out there and you let people know you care about them,” said one person close to the White House. “President Trump does not want to see things like this happen on his watch. And he views himself as a fixer.”

Trump, who will travel to Texas with first lady Melania Trump, is expected to meet with first responders in the area and receive a briefing from local elected officials, according to a White House official. The president is also planning to meet with some families who were affected by the flood, the official said. The trip has been designed, in part, to not interfere with ongoing search and rescue and recovery efforts.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz are among those expected to be on site with Trump as well. And Sen. John Cornyn, who is facing a bruising primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is slated to travel aboard Air Force One with Trump, a Cornyn aide confirmed. The trip comes a day after Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, citing “biblical grounds” for ending their 38-year marriage. Trump has so far stayed neutral in the race.

The trip marks the White House’s latest show of support for Texas’ recovery effort, even as Trump officials continue to push for downsizing the government’s emergency preparedness operations – or even eliminating FEMA altogether.

And it represents a stark contrast with Trump’s attitude earlier this year toward California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom he targeted with harsh criticism amid the blue state’s battle against devastating wildfires.

Trump ultimately visited California in his first domestic trip after taking office, greeting Newsom on the tarmac upon his arrival. But the two have since continued to tussle over a request for billions of dollars in recovery aid for California that remains in limbo.

“Would he do that with Texas? Probably not,” said one Republican operative close to the administration. “There is a difference in terms of how he approaches these things, depending on whether it’s a red state or a blue state.”

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson rejected the suggestion that Trump has taken different approaches to certain states based on their politics.

“President Trump has led historic disaster recovery efforts in both California and North Carolina – he’s doing the same in Texas,” Jackson said, citing federal efforts to help quickly remove debris in southern California and support the cleanup process in western North Carolina. “Any claim that the President is giving certain states preferential treatment is not only wrong, it’s idiotic and misinformed.”

Trump has targeted political opponents for their handling of natural disasters in the past, criticizing then-President Joe Biden following deadly wildfires in Hawaii in 2023 and fanning conspiracy theories about the Biden administration’s response in North Carolina to Hurricane Helene last year.

Trump even briefly suggested Biden might be culpable in some way for the flooding in Texas, initially telling reporters that his predecessor was responsible for the water “setup.” It was unclear what he was referring to, and Trump quickly clarified he wasn’t blaming Biden. Since then, Trump and his top aides have avoided casting blame, while accusing critics of the administration’s response of trying to politicize a tragedy. The White House has maintained that the disaster was largely inescapable, while commending the efforts of Abbott – a close political ally – and other state and local officials.

“There’s never been a wave like this, outside of the breaking of a dam,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “And this is the kind of thing that built up so fast, and it’s happened two or three times over the years, but not to this extent.”

The White House has pushed back hard on suggestions that its policies weakened the government’s defenses against such disaster threats. Some Democrats had publicly fretted that deep cuts to the federal bureaucracy would end up restricting the staffing and resources available in emergency situations.

After Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, raised questions over whether efforts to reduce staff at the National Weather Service hampered forecasting of the heavy rains that caused the flash floods, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it a “depraved lie.”

“Many Democrat elected officials are trying to turn this into a political game, and it is not,” she said earlier this week. “This is a national tragedy.”

Trump officials, in meantime, have doubled down on their vows to shrink FEMA and shift more responsibility for disaster management to individual states – even as advocates for the agency pointed to the Texas flooding as a timely example of why vast federal resources are necessary.

FEMA officials trying to pre-position search-and-rescue crews following the disaster ran into new spending approval requirements imposed by the Trump administration that slowed its work, CNN first reported on Wednesday. Those teams weren’t authorized for deployment until more than 72 hours after the flooding began.

“This would be an unmitigated, unforced disaster, and it would certainly exacerbate the toll of extreme weather events,” a group of House Democrats wrote in a letter Wednesday to FEMA and the agency in charge of the National Weather Service. The letter decried the planned dismantling of FEMA and called for congressional hearings on the flood response.

The Homeland Security Department, which oversees FEMA, has defended the federal response and insisted it will forge ahead on plans to overhaul the agency. The federal response, one Texas official said, has been “as good as anyone could ask for,” given the circumstances, describing Noem as responsive.

On Wednesday, Noem argued that FEMA needs to be “eliminated as it exists today and remade into a responsive agency.”

“Federal emergency management should be state and locally led, rather than how it has operated for decades,” she said.

One state official viewed Texas’ response to the flooding as “a model for what other states could do to start building out a framework for how to be better in control of their own disaster response.”

For Trump, though, allies said the visit represents a more immediate calculation ingrained in him during his first term and on the campaign trail: It pays to show up for those who he believes showed up for him at the ballot box, especially in deep-red states like Texas.

“This is totally on brand,” the person close to the White House said. “He wants to be on the ground.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Betsy Klein contributed to this report.



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NFL star, East Bay native Najee Harris injured in Fourth of July fireworks explosion, sources confirm – The Mercury News

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  1. NFL star, East Bay native Najee Harris injured in Fourth of July fireworks explosion, sources confirm  The Mercury News
  2. Agent: Bolts’ Harris hurt eye in fireworks incident  ESPN
  3. Chargers RB Najee Harris injured in fireworks accident but expected to be ready for season, agent says  CBS Sports
  4. Man loses fingers in Antioch firework blast that injured six others  San Francisco Chronicle
  5. Chargers RB Najee Harris sustains superficial eye injury during Fourth of July event  NFL.com



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Ukraine to receive US Patriot air defence systems, says Trump

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US President Donald Trump has said he will send weapons, including Patriot air defence systems, for Ukraine via Nato.

Trump told NBC News that in a new deal, “we’re going to be sending Patriots to Nato, and then Nato will distribute that”, adding that Nato would pay for the weapons.

His announcement came after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of having a “positive dialogue” with Trump on ensuring that arms arrived on time, particularly air defence systems.

Zelensky said he had asked for 10 Patriot systems, after a surge in Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in the past week.

Speaking in Rome on Thursday, the Ukrainian leader said Germany was ready to pay for two of the Patriots and Norway for one, while other European partners were also prepared to help.

After a phone-call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin last week, Trump said he was “not happy” that progress had not been made towards ending the war, and he has since complained that Putin’s “very nice” attitude turned out to be meaningless.

During his interview with NBC News, Trump said he would make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday, but did not say what it would be about.

He said “Nato is going to reimburse the full cost” for the weapons sent on to Ukraine. Nato is funded through the contributions of its members, including the US.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Friday that he had urged countries including Germany and Spain to hand over some of their existing Patriot batteries, as they could reach Ukraine faster.

“We have continued to encourage our Nato allies to provide those weapons… since they have them in their stocks, then we can enter into financial agreements… where they can purchase the replacements.”

The US defence department halted some shipments of critical weapons last week, raising concerns in Kyiv that its air defences could run low in a matter of months.

Among the armaments reported to have been placed on pause were Patriot interceptor missiles and precision artillery shells.

Then, as Ukraine was pounded by record numbers of drone attacks this week, Trump said more weapons would be sent: “We have to… They’re getting hit very hard now.”

Zelensky had appealed for the shipments to resume, describing the Patriot systems as “real protectors of life”.

On Tuesday night, Ukraine was hit by a record 728 drones, and the Ukrainian president warned that Russia wanted to increase that to 1,000.

June saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in Ukraine in three years, with 232 people killed and more than 1,300 injured, according to the UN.

Since re-entering the White House in January, Trump has pushed to scale back US support for Ukraine.

The US was the biggest source of military aid to Ukraine between the start of 2022 and the end of 2024, giving $69bn (£54.6bn) in that time period, according to German think tank the Kiel Institute.

Trump has also pressed Nato allies to pledge more of their GDP to the security alliance. Last year, all European Nato members pledged to spend 2% of GDP on defence.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The US has been urging the two countries to reach an agreement to end the war.

Rubio told reporters that he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a “frank” conversation on the sidelines of a meeting in Malaysia on Thursday.

Rubio echoed Trump’s “frustration at the lack of progress at peace talks”, including “disappointment that there has not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict”.

He said the two had shared some new ideas about how the conflict could conclude, which he would take back to Trump.

Rubio declined to elaborate on what Trump said would be a “major” announcement about Russia on Monday.



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