Turkey Bans Elon Musk’s Grok AI Chatbot for ‘Insulting’ President Erdoğan

(Photo by DPPA/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Turkey has blocked access to Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok after a court ruled Thursday that the bot insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkish-language responses.

The chatbot, developed by Musk’s xAI and integrated into the X platform, was banned after generating content deemed offensive to the Turkish president and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Prosecutors in Ankara launched an investigation into Grok late Monday, according to pro-government outlets A Haber and Haber 7, while the bot was also issuing responses praising Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler and pushing antisemitic tropes. The outburst from the AI came after a new update on July 6.

The decision, confirmed just one day later on Tuesday, marks the country’s first official ban on an AI tool. The ruling followed a court order citing violations of Article 299 of Turkey’s penal code, which criminalizes insulting the president and carries a sentence of up to four years in prison.

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) swiftly enforced the ban, while the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office announced a formal investigation. Neither Musk nor X has commented on the matter.

Last month, Musk acknowledged quality issues, saying there was “far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data,” and promising a significant update to Grok.