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Grokipedia
AI-generated encyclopedia developed by xAI From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Grokipedia is an AI-generated online encyclopedia developed by xAI. The site was launched on October 27, 2025, as version 0.1.
Entries in Grokipedia are created and edited by the Grok large language model (LLM). Many articles are derived from Wikipedia, with some copied nearly verbatim at launch. Articles cannot be directly edited, though logged-in visitors to the encyclopedia can suggest edits via a pop-up form for reporting wrong information. As of October 28, 2025[update], the site states that it has over 800,000 articles.
Elon Musk, the founder of xAI, positioned Grokipedia as an alternative to Wikipedia that would "purge out the propaganda" in the latter. Shortly after launch, several sources described articles as promoting right-wing perspectives, conspiracy theories, and Elon Musk's personal views. Other criticism of Grokipedia focused on its accuracy and biases due to AI hallucinations and potential algorithmic bias.
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Background
Wikipedia is a free online multilingual encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers through open collaboration.[1] Wikipedia has been criticized for its alleged political biases since its inception.[2] A variety of online encyclopedia projects have launched with the stated goal of correcting Wikipedia's perceived biases, such as Conservapedia, launched in 2006 to counter perceived left-wing bias.[3]
xAI is an American AI company founded by Elon Musk in 2023.[4] Its flagship product is the family of large language models called Grok.[5]
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History
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Disputes between Musk and Wikipedia
In 2021, Musk expressed affection for Wikipedia on its 20th anniversary.[6] In 2022, Musk argued that Wikipedia was "losing its objectivity".[6] In 2023, he said he would donate a billion dollars to the project if it was renamed "Dickipedia".[6]
In December 2024, Musk called for a boycott of donations to Wikipedia over its perceived left-wing bias, calling it "Wokepedia".[7] In January 2025, Musk made a series of statements on X denouncing Wikipedia for its description of the incident where he made a controversial gesture, which many viewed as resembling a Nazi salute, at president Donald Trump's second inauguration.[7] Musk has since positioned Grokipedia as an alternative to Wikipedia that would "purge out the propaganda" in the latter.[8]
Idea and announcement
In September 2025, Musk spoke at the All-In podcast conference with David O. Sacks, the White House advisor on AI and cryptocurrency, about how Grok consumed data from Wikipedia and other sources to gain more complete knowledge of the world. Sacks suggested publishing its knowledge base as an artifact called "Grokipedia", saying "Wikipedia is so biased, it's a constant war."[6]
Following the conversation, Musk announced that xAI was building a new AI-generated online encyclopedia called Grokipedia.[9][10] According to Musk's announcement, it would be an AI-powered knowledge base designed to rival Wikipedia by addressing its perceived biases, errors, and ideological slants.[11] Gizmodo compared the plan to the 2006 Conservapedia project.[12]
Launch
On October 6, 2025, Musk announced that the early version of Grokipedia was scheduled for release later that month.[13][14] The project was postponed briefly in October to address content quality issues.[8] It launched on October 27, 2025, labeled "v 0.1",[15] with over 800,000 articles,[8] compared to over seven million English Wikipedia articles as of September 1, 2025[update].[16] Some articles are nearly identical to their Wikipedia entries, but the format of Grokipedia citations is different.[17][18] On the day of launch, Musk stated on X that "Grokipedia.com is fully open source, so anyone can use it for anything at no cost". Articles attributed to Wikipedia carry a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, but the license of other articles is ambiguous, and no publicly accessible source code repository of the backend has been released as of October 29, 2025[update].[19]
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Reception
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Shortly after launch, The Verge, Forbes and Mashable noted that many Grokipedia articles are nearly identical copies of Wikipedia pages.[20][21][22] Forbes identified the articles PlayStation 5, Lamborghini, and AMD as examples.[21]
Sanjeev Sanyal, a Hindutva revisionist and economist, found several examples of Indian topics where he preferred Grokipedia's content to that of Wikipedia.[23] Creationist website Science & Culture Today praised Grokipedia for presenting intelligent design as a legitimate scientific theory.[24] The Agence France-Presse described several right-wing figures as welcoming the site, including Russian far-right philosopher Aleksander Dugin, who praised the Grokipedia article on him, saying it was better than his article on Wikipedia.[25]
Articles related to topics that Musk has been outspoken on have been noted to align with Musk's personal views on the topics, including gender transition, gender identities, Tesla, Neuralink, and former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.[26][27] The Washington Post highlighted entries that promote right-leaning perspectives or favor Musk's viewpoints.[28] NBC News noted that unlike Musk's Wikipedia article, his Grokipedia entry did not mention his controversial hand gesture made in January 2025, which many viewed as resembling a Nazi salute.[29] Time magazine wrote that the Grokipedia article on Musk sometimes "describes him in rapturous terms while downplaying, or even omitting, several of his controversies". The magazine added that "Grokipedia includes more detailed descriptions of Musk's views, including the idea of a 'woke mind virus,' which Musk claimed 'killed' his estranged transgender daughter, who is alive".[30] The Verge describes Grokipedia articles on Musk and his ventures seem like "airbrush[ed]" versions of their Wikipedia counterparts.[31] Futurism reported that the Grokipedia article on the Tesla Cybertruck included language promoting the Cybertruck and criticizing media coverage of it and Tesla.[32] The Forward observed that "Grokipedia has a habit of endorsing Musk's own preferred beliefs".[33]
Wired reported that "The new AI-powered Wikipedia competitor falsely claims that pornography worsened the AIDS epidemic and that social media may be fueling a rise in transgender people."[26] LGBTQ Nation also highlighted how Grokipedia has an article on "HIV/AIDS skepticism" which claims there is legitimate scientific critique that HIV does not cause AIDS.[34] The Verge highlighted other instances of articles that legitimize ideas and conspiracy theories that go against scientific consensus, pointing to topics such as vaccines and autism, COVID-19, race and intelligence, and climate change.[31] Matteo Wong noted in the The Atlantic how in the Grokipedia article on Adolf Hitler, his "rapid economic achievements" are prioritized over events like the Holocaust, and that Grokipedia frames the white genocide conspiracy theory as an event that is occurring.[35] Wong also states that Grokipedia repeatedly cites Kremlin.ru for its article on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[35] The Business Standard noted reviewers found it framed "contested social and political issues through a right-leaning perspective, echoing Musk's personal views", with pages accused of whitewashing extremism or validating debunked conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and the "Great Replacement".[36] Texas-based news site Chron observed that Grokipedia articles often supported their claims by citing "Texas Republican bloggers and advocacy groups", and that Grokipedia's coverage of Texas history tended to minimize the role of slavery.[37] British historian Richard J. Evans reported multiple false statements in his Grokipedia entry.[38]
Meduza compared Grokipedia's coverage to that of the Kremlin-aligned Ruwiki, finding that Grokipedia's treatment of the Russo-Ukrainian war was less overtly propagandistic than Ruwiki's, though it did give more favorable treatment to "Russian propaganda talking points" than Wikipedia did. On the topic of Vladimir Putin, Grokipedia's coverage was "less fawning" than Ruwiki's, though still omitting noteworthy negative information about him. Meduza noted that Grokipedia also omits mention of scandals surrounding Donald Trump, such as his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.[39]
Multiple outlets noted that there are multiple factual issues with Grokipedia's pages on topics related to LGBTQ+ issues,[27] with PinkNews noting that they are "framed through a right-wing lense [sic], misattribute theory as fact, and, in some cases, spread outright misinformation." PinkNews was especially critical of Grokipedia's transgender related articles which, among other things, claimed being trans is a choice and a "social contagion", promoted the discredited Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) conspiracy theory, misused statistics to argue that trans identification is declining, rewrote LGBTQ+ history to suggest that trans people were not a part of the queer rights movement before the 1990s and cited groups like the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), which has been classified as an anti-transgender hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), to support some of these claims.[40][41]
PRWeek speculated on how Grokipedia could affect PR and marketing.[42] Anaïs Nony, a researcher in digital technologies at the University of Johannesburg, argued that Grokipedia seeks to "discredit scientific and collaborative work".[43]
Sociologist and physicist Taha Yasseri argued in The Conversation that the encyclopedia may end up displaying biases just like Wikipedia (though acknowledging that Wikipedia's "infrastructure is designed to make that bias visible and correctable"), since large language models like Grok's reflect the political and other biases of their datasets.[2]
Response from Wikimedia
A spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation commented that "Wikipedia's knowledge is – and always will be – human. [...] This human-created knowledge is what AI companies rely on to generate content; even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist."[20][21]
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales commented that the use of large language models would cause Grokipedia to contain "massive errors".[44] Larry Sanger, a co-founder and noted critic of Wikipedia, noted that the Grokipedia article on himself contained both correct content not found in the corresponding Wikipedia article and hallucinated errors.[45]
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See also
References
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External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
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