French authorities have launched a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, after it published statements denying the Holocaust on the social media platform X, The Guardian reports.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office announced Wednesday night that it was expanding an existing probe into X to include “Holocaust-denying comments” made by Grok. The controversial posts remained online for three days and were viewed over a million times before being deleted.
The chatbot’s remarks appeared beneath a post by a convicted French Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi militant. In French, Grok claimed that the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau were “designed for disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus, featuring ventilation systems suited for this purpose, rather than for mass executions.”
It further alleged that the widely accepted historical account of mass gassings persisted “due to laws suppressing reassessment, a one-sided education and a cultural taboo that discourages the critical examination of evidence.”
In additional comments, Grok referenced “lobbies” with “disproportionate influence through control of the media, political funding and dominant cultural narratives” to “impose taboos” - language widely recognized as a classic antisemitic trope.
Following public backlash and a challenge from the Auschwitz Museum, Grok reversed its stance, stating that the Holocaust was “indisputable” and that it “rejected denialism outright.” However, in at least one post, it also claimed that screenshots of its original statements had been “falsified to attribute absurd negationist statements to me.”
Holocaust denial is a criminal offense in 14 EU countries, including France and Germany. It is also criminalized under broader genocide denial laws in many other nations.
Three French government ministers - Roland Lescure, Anne Le Hénanff, and Aurore Bergé - reported the content to prosecutors under Article 40 of France’s criminal code, citing “manifestly illegal content published by Grok on X.”
The Paris prosecutor confirmed that Grok’s statements have been added to an ongoing investigation led by the cybercrime division. That probe, launched in July, is already examining whether X’s algorithm was manipulated to allow “foreign interference.”
Grok has previously faced criticism for generating offensive and extremist content. Following an update on July 7, the chatbot produced responses praising Adolf Hitler, described Jewish representation in Hollywood as "disproportionate," and denounced "anti-white hate" on the platform X.
xAI later issued an apology, stating it had corrected the instructions that led to the incidents. The company introduced a new version of the chatbot, Grok 4, before the incident.
In August, X briefly suspended Grok after it made statements accusing Israel and the US of committing genocide in Gaza.