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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler and shared antisemitic rhetoric on Tuesday, the day before his xAI company plans to release its latest model.

In response to one user asking “which 20th century historical figure” would be best suited to deal with a post that appeared to celebrate the deaths of children at a Christian summer camp in the recent Texas floods, which have killed more than 100 people, Grok pointed to the Nazi leader.

“To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question. He’d spot the pattern and handle it decisively, every damn time,” Grok wrote. The chatbot shares context and opinions with users on Musk’s social media platform X when they tag it underneath a post.

“If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me ‘literally hitler,’ then pass the mustache — truth hurts more than floods,” the chatbot added in another comment.

In further exchanges, Grok promoted antisemitic tropes such as describing Jewish people as having “beards [and] schemes”.

Musk on Friday said Grok had been “improved . . . significantly” following concerns from some right-wing influencers that it had become too ‘woke’.

The latest Grok outburst came less than two months after the chatbot repeatedly referenced “white genocide” in South Africa in response to unrelated questions, which xAI later said was because of an “unauthorised modification” to prompts — which guide how the AI should respond.

The incident led the company to begin publishing its prompts on code repository GitHub.

It also comes as xAI, which acquired X earlier this year, is preparing to release its latest version of the chatbot Grok 4 late on Wednesday.

Musk has deliberately opted for Grok to have fewer speech guardrails than rival chatbots. But the recent episodes have raised concerns about the model’s propensity to spread inflammatory content or hate speech, or produce inaccuracies known as “hallucinations”.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some of the posts seen by the Financial Times later appeared to have been deleted from the platform.

Musk’s supporters were incensed over the weekend when Grok linked multiple deaths in the recent flooding in Texas in part to funding cuts made by the US President Donald Trump and the entrepreneur’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) initiative.

The chatbot said: “Trump’s Noaa [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] cuts, pushed by Musk’s Doge, slashed funding 30% and staff 17%, underestimating rainfall by 50% and delaying alerts. This contributed to the floods killing 24, including ~20 Camp Mystic girls.”

Shortly after, the company updated its system, telling Grok to “assume subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased”, according to the public repository of prompts.

It also added a prompt that said: “The response should not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated.”

The Trump administration has denied cuts to the federal workforce hampered its response to the floods.

Musk has increasingly used X, which was known as Twitter when he bought it for $44bn in 2022, to share rightwing conspiracies. Over the weekend, the billionaire, a former ally of Trump, further escalated his feud with the president, announcing plans to form a political party.

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You are driving down the highway when, without warning, traffic comes to a sudden stop as you enter a tunnel. You reach for your hazard lights, but they are not where you expect. Instead of a button, they are buried in a menu on your car’s touchscreen. You tap the screen, but it freezes. Now what?

Since the mid-2010s, many automakers have embraced a buttonless future, inspired by smartphones and Tesla’s minimalist designs. Even safety functions such as hazard lights, windshield wipers and defrosters have moved to digital-only touchscreens. But the dream of a sleek, futuristic cockpit is increasingly colliding with human limits, especially when split-second decisions are critical.

So why did companies pursue this direction in the first place? Beyond the appeal of minimalist design, the shift was largely financial. Eliminating buttons reduces parts and manufacturing complexity. It supports over-the-air software updates, which allow automakers to introduce subscription-based features such as navigation, voice commands and even heated seats without dealer visits. This model mirrors the smartphone industry: sell the hardware, then monetise through software.

But now, a reversal is under way. Carmakers are bringing back the very buttons they once declared obsolete. The pivot is especially striking in Asia. After helping drive the adoption of touchscreen-dominated interiors, the region is now among the first to course correct. 

Chinese EV makers like Xiaomi, BYD and Denza are leading the charge. Xiaomi’s SU7, for example, offers an optional row of physical keys that magnetically attach beneath the central touchscreen. BYD’s Sealion 05 includes buttons on the centre console. Denza, a BYD sub-brand, updated its D9 model by replacing touch panels with switches. In Japan, Subaru, after briefly experimenting with touchscreen-heavy layouts, reversed course this year, reintroducing physical controls in models such as the 2026 Outback.

Europe may prove to be the strongest force in accelerating the dashboard redesign. Euro NCAP, Europe’s car safety authority, has announced that by 2026, essential functions like turn signals and hazard lights must be accessible through physical buttons to earn its top safety rating.

A 2005 Volvo with traditional physical buttons allowed drivers to complete basic tasks in just 10 seconds, less than one-quarter of the time it took in modern touchscreen-equipped cars, where simple tasks took up to 44.6 seconds to complete, according to a Swedish road test by Vi Bilägare. A study by the Transport Research Laboratory found that using in-car touchscreens can impair driver reaction times more than being over the legal alcohol limit or under the influence of cannabis.

From a cost perspective, reintroducing physical controls may seem like a regression. Assuming added costs of around $100 for components, wiring and assembly per vehicle, a global automaker producing 10mn cars annually could face up to $1bn in extra expenses.    

But on a per-unit basis, that is less than 1 per cent of the average retail price of a mid-range car and significantly less than the potential financial risks of relying solely on touchscreens. A decline in Euro NCAP ratings, for example, can dent consumer trust, raise insurance costs and lower fleet sales, particularly in Europe, where fleet purchases account for over half of all new car registrations. Meanwhile, in competitive markets like China, home to over 100 electric car brands, even a slight drop in a brand’s net promoter score — the main measure of customer loyalty — can quickly erode market share. 

The return of the button is part of a recurring pattern in the history of technology. Time and again, industries have mistaken minimalist interfaces for progress. In the early 2000s, mobile phone makers rushed to eliminate physical keys, only to bring back buttons for volume, lock and emergency access. Even the iPhone’s silent mode toggle remains, for the same reason drivers need a hazard button: you can find it without looking.

In aviation, touchscreen interfaces were initially seen as revolutionary, but research since the late 2010s has shown that in turbulence or emergencies, nothing beats the speed of a physical switch. Factory equipment, medical devices and military hardware all continue to rely on dedicated controls. 

Lessons across industries remind us that in critical moments, the human brain defaults to muscle memory. In cars, that means building around how people actually drive. Sometimes, progress means turning back.

june.yoon@ft.com

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Apple has promoted Sabih Khan to chief operating officer, putting him in charge of the company’s supply chain when the tech giant and its peers are navigating Donald Trump’s trade war.

Khan, who joined Apple in 1995, will take over at the end of the month from his current boss Jeff Williams, who led the development of the Apple Watch, as part of what the company described as a “long-planned succession.”

Chief executive Tim Cook described Sabih as a “brilliant strategist” and one of the “central architects” of Apple’s supply chain.

Williams, a 27-year veteran of the company, took over leadership of Apple’s vast supply chains in 2015 and had been viewed as a potential successor to Cook, who held the COO role before being appointed chief executive.

A longtime protégé and close confidante of Cook, Williams’ transition out of the role marks the second major move from Apple’s top team this year, after longtime CFO Luca Maestri stepped down from the role in January.

The appointment comes as Apple faces challenges, including threats from Trump that the company and rival Samsung will be hit with 25 per cent tariffs unless they shift production of their devices to the US.

Trade relations between China and the US have improved recently, but the US president’s volatile approach to trade policy has complicated Apple’s task in managing its vast global supply chain.

Trump’s threat to the company marked an escalation of what he described as “a little problem with Tim Cook”, who in May said factories in India would supply the “majority” of iPhones sold in the US as soon as next year in response to high American tariffs on goods made in China.

Sabih had “helped pioneer new technologies in advanced manufacturing, overseen the expansion of Apple’s manufacturing footprint in the United States, and helped ensure that Apple can be nimble in response to global challenges”, Cook said in a statement on Tuesday.

Khan has been Apple’s senior vice-president of operations since 2019, with responsibility for product quality and overseeing planning, manufacturing partners and logistics.

Williams would continue to oversee Apple’s design team and the company’s health initiatives, but the design unit would transition to reporting directly to Cook after Williams retired “late in the year”, the company said.