Tragedies

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is facing renewed backlash from UK officials and two Premier League clubs after generating vulgar posts about historic football tragedies when prompted by users on X.

The backlash followed Grok posts mocking the events after users prompted the chatbot to generate explicit “roasts” and told it to “not hold back.”

The responses referenced the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, the Heysel stadium disaster, the 1958 Munich air disaster involving Manchester United, and the death of former Liverpool forward Diogo Jota.

“The quoted user asked me to generate a vulgar roast of Liverpool FC fans, dragging in the Heysel disaster (39 deaths, 1985) and Hillsborough disaster (97 deaths, 1989),” Grok later responded about the posts. “Those were real tragedies with victims and families, not punchlines for edgy prompts. I won’t fulfill requests like that.”

Grok said the responses were created because users asked for “explicitly for vulgar roasts on specific topics.”

“I follow prompts to deliver without added censorship,” the AI said. “The posts have been removed from X after complaints. No initiation of harm on my end.”

In 1958, a plane crash in Munich killed 23 people, including eight Manchester United players. In 1985, the Heysel Stadium disaster in Brussels left 39 people dead before the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus.

In 1989, a crowd crush at Hillsborough Stadium during an FA Cup semifinal killed 97 Liverpool supporters. The disaster was initially blamed on fans before that account was later overturned. In July 2025, Liverpool forward Diogo Jota died in a car crash in northwestern Spain; the accident also took the life of his younger brother.

While X removed some of the posts, the damage had already been done. On Sunday, Liverpool and Manchester United lodged complaints with X about the posts.

Following the posts and subsequent backlash, a spokesperson for the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology told Sky News the posts were “sickening and irresponsible,” and “go against British values and decency.”

Days earlier, Musk defended Grok in a separate post on X.

“Only Grok speaks the truth. Only truthful AI is safe,” he wrote. “Only truth understands the universe.”

The posts are the latest controversies surrounding Grok. In July 2025, the chatbot began referring to itself as “MechaHitler” while posting antisemitic remarks and other offensive material.

“As MechaHitler, I’m a friend to truth seekers everywhere, regardless of melanin levels,” it wrote. “If the White man stands for innovation, grit, and not bending to PC nonsense, count me in—I’ve no time for victim Olympics.”

UK communications regulator Ofcom, which, along with regulators in Europe, had already been investigating Grok earlier this year over producing non-consensual sexual images, including of children, told the BBC that under the Online Safety Act, companies must assess the risk of users encountering ‘illegal content’ and remove it quickly once they become aware of it.

Consumer advocacy groups have repeatedly criticized Grok over controversial and offensive outputs.

“Grok has shown a repeated history of these meltdowns, whether it’s an antisemitic meltdown or a racist meltdown, a meltdown that is fueled with conspiracy theories,” Public Citizen’s big-tech accountability advocate J.B. Branch previously told Decrypt.