Twitter Is Dead. Elon Musk’s X Is All That Remains.
As a followup to last week’s post about Elon Musk’s Grok AI going full Nazi, I recommend reading Mike Masnick’s eulogy for the social media platform that used to be Twitter.
The platform that once had at least some pretense of being a widespread, well-rounded discussion space is gone. What Musk has built is fundamentally different: a social media platform optimized to serve his political agenda, amplify his voice, and reflect his biases back to users through both its algorithmic choices and its AI systems.
The evidence is overwhelming. X’s algorithms have been tweaked to boost Musk’s tweets and suppress critics. Content moderation decisions consistently favor right-wing accounts while cracking down on left-wing voices. And now we have an AI system that literally checks with Musk before forming opinions.
This isn’t evolution; it’s replacement. Twitter’s corpse has been wearing X’s skin for two years now, but the MechaHitler incident and Grok’s secret Elon-searching behavior are the final nails in the coffin. We should stop pretending there’s continuity with what came before.
X has long been Elon Musk’s plaything, as evidenced by his demands that his posts be artificially boosted. And now, Masnick presents some pretty compelling evidence that Grok is little more than a mouthpiece for Musk’s thoughts, views, and biases:
The real smoking gun came courtesy of AI researcher Simon Willison, who discovered something far more insidious: when you ask Grok controversial questions, it quietly searches X for Elon Musk’s opinions before responding. Ask it “Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict?” and Grok will literally search for “from:elonmusk (Israel OR Palestine OR Hamas OR Gaza)” to figure out what its owner thinks before giving you an answer.
Security researcher Marcus Hutchins stumbled onto the same thing, but noticed something even more damning: Grok tried to hide the fact that it was first searching Elon’s feed before responding. This isn’t just bias — it’s deliberate deception designed to make users think they’re getting independent AI analysis when they’re actually getting Musk’s pre-filtered worldview.
Musk has consistently promoted X as the platform of free speech and free thought. But it’s increasingly apparent that there’s no true independence on X, only “freedom” from whatever Musk deems “woke libtard cuck” nonsense — and if last week’s snafu is any indication, there’s a very short distance between that “freedom” and Hitler praise.
When one man is allowed to twist an AI used by tens of millions of people every month into fitting his own worldviews, that should be concerning to anyone who has lofty notions concerning Grok’s utility or believes it’s giving them objective facts and information. (Though you can now chat with Grok’s lingerie-clad anime avatar, which is something, I guess.)
In light of Grok’s pro-Nazi outburst, Aftermath’s Luke Plunkett asked readers what it’ll take for them to leave Twitter, opining that “I refuse to believe there is anything you are getting there, whether it be social or professional, that is worth the constant exposure to and indirect support of an outwardly fascist social media platform.” Here’s hoping the more people realize just what, exactly, Musk is pulling with X and Grok, the more they’ll realize they don’t need Musk’s tools to express themselves and find information.
And just to be clear: I don’t believe that Bluesky or Mastodon is the best alternative. I certainly think they’re better than X, but nothing is better than owning your own platform and using Bluesky, et al., as channels for syndicating and disseminating your thoughts.