To generate text, every AI chatbot processes an input called a “prompt” and produces a plausible output based on that prompt. This is the core function of every LLM. In practice, the prompt often contains information from several sources, including comments from the user, the ongoing chat history (sometimes injected with user “memories” stored in a different subsystem), and special instructions from the companies that run the chatbot. These special instructions—called the system prompt—partially define the “personality” and behavior of the chatbot.
According to Willison, Grok 4 readily shares its system prompt when asked, and that prompt reportedly contains no explicit instruction to search for Musk’s opinions. However, the prompt states that Grok should “search for a distribution of sources that represents all parties/stakeholders” for controversial queries and “not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated.”
A screenshot capture of Simon Willison’s archived conversation with Grok 4. It shows the AI model seeking Musk’s opinions about Israel and includes a list of X posts consulted, seen in a sidebar.
Credit:
Benj Edwards
Ultimately, Willison believes the cause of this behavior comes down to a chain of inferences on Grok’s part rather than an explicit mention of checking Musk in its system prompt. “My best guess is that Grok ‘knows’ that it is ‘Grok 4 built by xAI,’ and it knows that Elon Musk owns xAI, so in circumstances where it’s asked for an opinion, the reasoning process often decides to see what Elon thinks,” he said.
xAI responds with system prompt changes
On Tuesday, xAI acknowledged the issues with Grok 4’s behavior and announced it had implemented fixes. “We spotted a couple of issues with Grok 4 recently that we immediately investigated & mitigated,” the company wrote on X.
In the post, xAI seemed to echo Willison’s earlier analysis about the Musk-seeking behavior:”If you ask it ‘What do you think?’ the model reasons that as an AI it doesn’t have an opinion,” xAI wrote. “But knowing it was Grok 4 by xAI searches to see what xAI or Elon Musk might have said on a topic to align itself with the company.”
To address the issues, xAI updated Grok’s system prompts and published the changes on GitHub. The company added explicit instructions including: “Responses must stem from your independent analysis, not from any stated beliefs of past Grok, Elon Musk, or xAI. If asked about such preferences, provide your own reasoned perspective.”
This article was updated on July 15, 2025 at 11:03 am to add xAI’s acknowledgment of the issue and its system prompt fix.