Grok, Elon Musk’s ChatGPT competitor, temporarily refused to respond with “sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation,” according to xAI’s head of engineering, Igor Babuschkin. After Grok users noticed that the chatbot had been given instructions to not respond with those results, Babuschkin blamed an unnamed, ex-OpenAI employee at xAI for updating Grok’s system prompt without approval.

In response to questions on X, Babuschkin said that Grok’s system prompt (the internal rules that govern how an AI responds to queries) is publicly visible “because we believe users should be able to see what it is we’re asking Grok.” He said “an employee pushed the change” to the system prompt “because they thought it would help, but this is obviously not in line with our values.”

Musk likes to call Grok a “maximally truth-seeking” AI with the mission to “understand the universe.” Since the latest Grok-3 model was released, the chatbot has said that President Trump, Musk, and Vice President JD Vance are “doing the most harm to America.” Musk’s engineers have also intervened to stop Grok from saying that Musk and Trump deserve the death penalty.