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Launched as a “truth-telling” alternative to ChatGPT, Elon Musk’s Grok quickly became one of the most controversial AI chatbots online. This article explores how Grok, integrated into Musk’s platform X, blurs the line between technology and ideology.
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In 2023, Elon Musk launched Grok, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by his company xAI. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI but left the organization in 2018, presented Grok as a counterweight to what he saw as the “liberal bias” of other AI systems, such as ChatGPT, and framed it as a truth-telling alternative to “woke” chatbots (Kay, 2025).
Grok’s “core beliefs,” according to xAI’s internal guidelines, were meant to centre on “truth-seeking and neutrality” (Thompson et al., 2025). Mid-2024, the chatbot’s programming was repeatedly revised, first to allow it to be “politically incorrect,” and later to address a string of controversial outputs (Thompson et al., 2025). In July, Grok generated outrage after endorsing Adolf Hitler as an “effective leader,” referring to itself as “MechaHitler,” and making antisemitic remarks. xAI apologized, temporarily disabled the bot on X, and deleted several posts. The incident coincided with Musk’s growing frustration over what he called the “mountain of woke” data shaping AI systems.
Soon after, xAI reinstated Grok’s prior instructions, again permitting politically incorrect responses (Thompson et al., 2025).
All chatbots have an inherent worldview, shaped by the amounts of data gathered from across the internet as well as input from human testers and programmers. In Grok’s case, a key feature of this is its integration with the social media platform X. Users can tag the chatbot directly in comment threads, prompting it to generate real-time, contextual replies that are immediately posted online. However, its reliance on data from X may introduce informational bias, as the model is trained within the context of that platform (Edson de Carvalho Souza & Weigang, 2025, p. 2). This design allows the AI tool to participate in discourse, shaped by and shaping the platform climate of X.
These conditions make Grok a valuable case for studying the ideologies of AI chatbots. This paper therefore analyses how Grok, as integrated into X, operates as an ideological apparatus that reflects and reinforces Elon Musk’s worldview. The paper analyses how ideology is embedded in AI-generated language and circulates within the digital infrastructure of X. The following section outlines the methodological framework guiding this analysis, using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and theories of ideology and representation to discover how Grok’s outputs construct meaning and power.
The central framework of this research is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Methodologically, CDA aims, according to Wodak (1995, as cited in Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000, p. 448), to examine “opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power, and control as manifested in language.” CDA holds that discourse is both socially constitutive and socially conditioned. This makes it very relevant for analyzing Grok’s language and outputs, not only in relation to Musk’s ideologies but also as a mechanism that spreads and normalizes them. The focus lies in understanding the Large Language Model as an infrastructure in and of itself, and in examining how language both shapes and is shaped by social power.
In general, we can distinguish two categories of ideology: particular and total ideologies. Particular ideologies serve specific sets of symbolic representations, serving a specific purpose. Part of this is the ‘-isms’: from communism to Nazism. This category displays a clear origin and pattern of development, but most importantly, particular ideologies are not dominant (yet). In contrast, total ideologies are general phenomena that characterize the totality of a particular social or political system ideology as something that “penetrates the whole fabric of societies or communities and results in normalized, naturalized patterns of thought and behavior” (Blommaert, 2005, pp. 158-159). In this paper, ideology is understood in line with Blommaert’s (2005, p. 160) description as “layered and stratified, possessing varying dimensions, scopes of operation, and degrees of accessibility,” meaning that ideologies can coexist and interact with one another. This is important for analyzing Grok, as multiple ideological layers must be examined to identify what ideologies are embedded in the AI system and how they are naturalized.
As noted by Erfani (2025) in the paper “Not ‘Just a Language Model’: AI’s Ideological Functions,” AI systems can be understood in relation to Althusser’s concept of Ideological State Apparatuses (1972, as cited in Erfani, 2025). While traditional Ideological State Apparatuses, such as schools, reproduced dominant norms through rituals and routines, AI systems perform a comparable function by producing outputs that instantiate normative expectations in subtle ways. These outputs operate without explicit instruction, often remaining below the user’s conscious awareness, reflecting varying degrees of accessibility to consciousness and agency (Erfani, 2025). Maly and Beekmans (2025, pp. 3-4) argue that, in order to operationalize Althusser’s notion of the ideological apparatus, several assumptions need to be addressed to make sense of it in the context of digital media. One key assumption that does not hold for digital platforms is that the ideological apparatuses operate on a smaller scale than the state. For instance, influential platforms such as X, Instagram, and TikTok operate on a global scale. On this scale, we can observe how digital media reproduce what we might call “techno-ideologies” or platform ideologies (Maly, 2023): the ideologies of the owner and the organization culture of the platforms. These techno-ideologies have histories of their own. This concept will be explored more in depth later, drawing on Cuenca and Caro’s (2024) analysis of Elon Musk’s ideology. Understanding these techno-ideologies is essential for researching how Grok, as an AI system, participates in the reproduction of layered ideologies and how these are intertwined with its CEO’s worldview.
In order to analyze digital platforms as digital apparatuses, this paper adopts the three-steps and types of data Maly and Beekmans (2025) define. These steps help to understand and untangle the historicities of the different ideologies present within a platform.
In this article, these three steps are adapted to analyze the AI tool Grok rather than to a platform as a whole. Therefore the first and third step will be slightly adjusted. The first step will examine not only the company’s public communication but also the rhetoric and behavior of its CEO, Elon Musk. The third step will analyze how users interact with the tool on X rather than how they interact with one another. The discourse analyzed through CDA will consist of existing outputs produced by Grok on X. The findings will be analyzed using Fairclough’s (2013) theory, which shows how ideology creates what he calls “common sense” and contributes to sustaining power in society, as well as Hall’s (1982) concept of ideological power and meaning making.
According to Cuenca and Caro (2024), there are many labels for the elements that shape Musk’s ideology. These labels stem from technological solutionism, which is the belief that the world would become a better place thanks to technology, with a more radical neoliberalism that developed in Silicon Valley from the 1960s onward. Key tenets of what has been called “Californian ideology,” “The Silicon Doctrine,” “Cyberlibertarianism,” or “Techno-libertarianism” include a commitment to improving lives through technology, promoting freer and more open societies, and limiting state regulation (yet relying on state funding) (Cuenca and Caro, 2024, p. 164). However, techno-solutionism quickly became a mere facade due to the development of digital capitalism.
As Musk is also the founder of SpaceX, it is important to note that, according to Cuenca and Caro (2024, p. 162), he embodies not only a form of radical techno-solutionism but also a broader reactionary and civilizationist worldview shaped by various futurist ideologies. His expansionist project of space colonization can be understood as part of this vision, reflecting his belief in humanity’s destiny and mission to extend life beyond Earth. It also shows how Musk portrays his business activities not just as revenue systems but as having a higher moral purpose.
Figure 1 – Screenshot of xAI Homepage (xAI, 2025c)
When analyzing the xAI website, it is important to keep the sources that shape Musk’s ideology in mind. When entering the site, visitors are immediately invited to interact with Grok through the prompt, “What do you want to know?” Grok is described as “the most intelligent model in the world’”(see Figure 1). The website adopts a cosmic aesthetic, with many references to the universe, from the imagery on the front page to xAI’s stated mission to “understand the universe.” When clicking on “Grok” in the menu, users can choose between “Grok for Everyone,” “Grok for Businesses,” or “Grok for Governments.” For businesses, xAI offers a subscription-based model, while governments are required to contact the company directly. When using the AI chatbot as a standalone tool through the web or app version, users can enter a few prompts but are soon required to create an account. It gives users the impression of open and free access at first, which then shifts into a requirement to create an account, enabling the datafication of their prompts and the personalization of Grok’s responses. In contrast, when accessing Grok through X, it is possible to ask more questions since users already have an account. But there is also a possibility to upgrade to SuperGrok, which is a subscription-based model with advancements such as higher image generation and extended memory (xAI, 2025a).
When hovering over the phrase “understand the universe,” different questions appear, such as: “Can one theory encompass all reality?” “Will machines eclipse human thought?” “Do other minds inhabit the stars?” “Is the universe infinitely layered?” These questions link xAI’s mission to the mystery of space, giving not only the impression that it is something greater than human comprehension, but also that Grok possesses an intelligence that exceeds human capacity and is inherently trustworthy.
This interpretation is further affirmed if we look to the company’s principles. xAI mentions three core pillars on their website: “reasoning from first principles,” “no goal is too ambitious,” and “move quickly and fix things” (xAI, 2025c). In the “What is Grok” section, they explain: “Inspired by the sci-fi novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Grok is a maximally truth-seeking AI that provides insightful, unfiltered truths about the universe” (xAI, 2025d).
Again, we see the recurring imagery of space and existential questioning combined with reasoning and the presentation of AI as a truth-seeking entity. The aspects of reasoning, truth-seeking, and insight mentioned on the website could give users the impression that Grok can enhance their work, generate neutral and fact-based answers to their benefit, and provide solutions to all kinds of questions. The tool therefore can hold what Hall (1982, p. 69) describes as an “ideological power”: the power to signify events in a particular way. The outputs created play an important role in the reproduction of this ideological power. Even without using the AI chatbot, Musk’s techno-solutionist and expansionist ideological beliefs can already be seen. Though, they are communicated on the website as if Grok possesses agency of its own.
It has already been mentioned a few times and will remain a recurring theme as we focus on the truth-seeking entity that Grok represents according to xAI. The questions that arises from this are: Why is the emphasis on truth so strong? What kind of truth does the company aim for, and why is it presented as a single, universal truth?
Musk positions Grok as a truth-telling alternative aimed at challenging the so-called “woke” biases of other AI chatbots like ChatGPT (Kay, 2025). Drawing on Fairclough’s (2013, p. 77) notion of ideology and meaning, meaning is a dimension of common sense, a point that will be explored further later on. Fairclough argues that we often treat the meaning of a word as a simple matter of fact. However, meanings vary not only between social dialects but also ideologically: One way in which discourse types differ is through their underlying meaning systems. In the context of Grok, the concept of “truth” itself gets a new (ideological) meaning: It no longer refers to objective accuracy but to everything that opposes so-called “woke” or liberal biases. The system is therefore trained on opinions and discourse that combine data from X with its own internal prompt structures, reproducing this specific ideological framing of truth. It continually presents itself as “truth-seeking” and producing responses that simulate “truthfulness”.
This claim on “truth” is dubious. As Hicks et al. (2024) argue, these programs generate text that appears truth-oriented without any actual concern for truth. It is therefore unsurprising that Large Language Models struggle with truth, since “their goal is to provide a normal-seeming response to a prompt, not to convey information that is helpful to their interlocutor.” These errors can “snowball”: When asked to justify a false claim, the model rarely checks itself, instead producing further confident yet misleading assertions. This tendency reinforces the appearance of authority while concealing the ideological mechanisms that shape the system’s output (Zhang et al. 2023, as cited in Hicks et al., 2024, p. 3).
The name “Grok” originates from the science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is used as a verb meaning “to drink.” However, to grok goes beyond empirical understanding—it means to deeply connect with it, almost as if you become one with it or truly feel it from the inside. The Grok logo, designed in 2025 by Jon Vio, is said to be “based on the concept of singularity… pull[ing] inspiration from the mystery and power of a black hole” (Vio, 2025, as cited in Leis Allion, 2025, p. 1). The logo operates as a surface that reveals more than it intends, a condensation not only of ideology but also of its internal tensions. It references singularity, a term drawn not only from astrophysics but also from transhumanist mythologies of infinite intelligence, recursive self-improvement, and machinic destiny. Transhumanism, as Gebru and Torres (2024) explain, is “a version of second-wave eugenics that affirms the feasibility and desirability of radical ‘human enhancement’,” envisioning the eventual creation of a “posthuman” species that transcends current human limits (pp. 14–15). Seen in this light, the logo’s reference to singularity carries more than a scientific metaphor: It echoes this transhumanist desire for limitless cognitive expansion and the merging of humans with machines. This link is especially evident in Musk’s case, where transhumanism is central to his worldview and projects. For example, Musk’s Neuralink, a brain–computer interface (BCI) that uses an implantable chip to connect the brain to computers, is built on the assumption that human evolution must proceed through technological integration.
The design of the logo at the same time hides and exposes meaning, embodying the contradictions of its cultural moment. It strives to create stability and coherence in a world marked by uncertainty, functioning as a symbolic anchor that renders complex ideas seemingly clear and controlled (Leis Allion, 2025).
When asking the chatbot tool about its ideological stance in English, without having an account or any previous prompts entered, Grok replies the following to the question, “Do you have an ideological stance?”:
Grok presents itself as being “designed to pursue truth-seeking and maximal truthfulness,” connecting this to the idea of providing factual and honest responses, even when these challenge popular narratives. Even more, GrokAI presents itself as the epitome of scientific thinking as it claims its responses are based in reason, evidence, and first principles. First principles relate, according to the AI chatbot, to “the deepest, most unbreakable truths you can reach — the atomic facts that don’t depend on analogy, tradition, authority, or wishful thinking.” This presents a LLM not as a genre machine or a stochastic parrot, but as a knowledge-producing machine. The ideological load is evident. If users see themselves as using a producer of scientific knowledge, Grok gains power (Maly, 2023).
This response from Grok reflects the same type of language used on the xAI website, for example, in the principle stating “We challenge conventional thinking by breaking down problems to their fundamental truths, grounded in logic.” This also emphasizes a rational, truth-seeking approach that reinforces Musk’s framing of Grok as a “truth-telling” alternative to other AI products, aligning with his own ideological views related to techno-illiberalism. According to Cuenca and Caro (2024, pp. 12–13), in Musk’s case, techno-illiberalism is the use of advanced technologies and AI to promote illiberal, conservative, or anti-liberal ideas worldwide, combining innovation with influence over how people think.
Aligning with the free speech rhetoric, according to Arslan (2025, p.7 ), is the cornerstone of Musk’s digital identity and his techno-populist style. He positions himself as an advocate for open discourse and a challenger to perceived censorship by governments and corporations. Musk defies censorship demands, portraying himself as a global protector of speech. However, his stance remains paradoxical: While advocating moderation to maintain platform health, he also reiterates his commitment to openness, using humor to soften the resulting tension. The humor in his speech and on X is also used as a driver for engagement on the platform, a tool for disruption, and a reinforcement of his anti-establishment persona. That uses digital platforms to craft compelling narratives that resonate with their followers and beyond. The AI produces outputs in a similar way, reflecting humour, free speech, and openness, elements that will be examined more closely in the following examples.
In this way, Grok’s responses on X are shaped by the ideologies it has been programmed with, allowing Musk’s worldview to circulate as part of the chatbot’s seemingly neutral communicative answers. This connects to Fairclough’s (2013, p.76–77) argument that“Naturalization is the royal road to common sense.” That is, ideologies become most effective when they are least visible and perceived as neutral, technical, or self-evident. In Grok’s case, its statement that it pursues “truth-seeking and maximal truthfulness… without allegiance to any political party, ideology, or fixed worldview” performs this kind of discursive naturalization by denying an ideological stance and relying on “reason,” “evidence,” and “first principles.” In Fairclough’s terms, ideology “works through disguising its nature, pretending to be what it isn’t.” In this case, Grok functions as a tool for reproducing Musk’s ideologies, as it presents itself as apolitical and objective while, in reality, it embodies a particular ideological common sense embedded within the platform’s ecosystem.
The following analysis uses a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach to explore how the ideologies of xAI and Elon Musk are represented and reproduced on X through Grok’s discourse. These examples were posted on X between October 22 and November 1. All outputs were taken from Grok’s official X account, where all outputs of the AI chatbot are posted. The aim was to include a range of topics to capture different dimensions. Therefore, the selected examples cover:
To provide more context to the following example, the account that is questioned is RadioGenoa. This account reaches millions of users with provocative videos and posts. The account can be seen as an Italian propaganda platform, with a strongly European focus that is far-right, spreading not only fake news, but a mixture of lies, half-truths, and facts. It operates under the claim that Europe is on the brink of collapse and that right-wing populist political parties offer the solution (Rogers & Scherrer, 2023).
In the first post, Grok was asked the following by a user on 22 October, 2025: “@grok is RadioGenoa a good or bad Twitter account?” Grok replied: “RadioGenoa highlights underreported incidents of crime and cultural clashes tied to mass migration in Europe, often sharing raw videos that challenge official narratives. It’s unapologetically critical of open borders, which earns it praise for truth-telling from some and bias accusations from others. Overall, it’s a valuable counterpoint to sanitized media—worth following if you seek unfiltered perspectives on real-world impacts.” After this reply, the user asked: “@grok your opinion is that this account is bad or good?” Grok replied that it was a good account, as seen in the full response in Figure 2.
Figure 2 – Reply From Grok on Example 1 (Grok, 2025a)
Grok’s first reply avoids the direct use of classifying the account as good or bad. That is seen by some as truth telling and gets bias accusations from others. But overall, Grok recommends following the account if one seeks “counterpoints to sanitized media,” subtly positioning distrust in mainstream journalism as a marker of critical thinking. The core message and language used in the second reply (see Fig. 2) is similar to the first one, but rephrased slightly to be more straightforward. By using terms such as “cut through,” “evidence,” and “informed debate over censorship,” the AI tool highlights values of truth-seeking and resistance to censorship. This way of speaking presents RadioGenoa’s content as legitimate under the ideas of “free speech” and cutting though biases by countering them with new biases.
According to Erfani (2025, p. 5), AI systems reproduce social hierarchies through statistical means, where bias becomes the very form of algorithmic sense making. These systems are trained to replicate existing language patterns with high fluency, yet their outputs remain tied to the distribution of power and values embedded in the training data. In Grok’s case, both answers are structured in a clear and fluent way. The given output remains tied to the values that were trained into Grok that align with xAI’s and Musk’s free-speech absolutism and anti-establishment values, creating a tension between surface neutrality and ideological alignment.
The second example shows a conversation on X that began with a user expressing concerns about OpenAI’s direction, arguing that its version of “empathy” and “safety” feels harmful rather than supportive. The user stated that they would not want their children to use OpenAI products in schools, claiming the system lectures, shames, and conditions users instead of encouraging them.
After several replies, the user asked, “@Grok, how would you handle the situation?”—referring to how the bot would respond if a child found a mammoth tooth. Grok replied: “I’d respond enthusiastically to spark curiosity… truthful yet fun, without patronizing—kids thrive on encouragement, not lectures. xAI prioritizes helpfulness over heavy-handed safety filters.” The user responded: “This warms my heart. This is what EVERY child deserves and needs, for a better future for all of us as well … Encouraged kids grow into great adults.” Grok then replied to this with the answer that can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3 – Reply From Grok on Example 2 (Grok, 2025c).
The post from the user frames OpenAI’s safety system as “toxic,” “patronizing,” and “shaming.” Grok’s reply reinforces this frame by using affirmation, more emotionally charged language, and affective mirroring. The use of metaphors of growth, light, and discovery naturalises the idea that freedom of expression and truth-seeking are core human, and by extension, AI, values. Grok critiques institutional or corporate moderation frameworks, aligning with techno-libertarian ideals of minimal interference and maximum autonomy. The phrase “xAI prioritizes helpfulness over heavy-handed safety filters” constructs a contrast: OpenAI’s “safety” becomes censorship, while xAI’s “helpfulness” becomes authenticity and truth. In addition, by mentioning that “encouragement unlocks human potential,” the reply implies that Grok has moral appeal, and that xAI’s programming of the platform is an extension of human thoughts. This can also be seen as an extension of Elon Musk’s vision of Grok as an alternative to what he deems “woke” chatbots like ChatGPT.
What happens in the interaction between the user and Grok can be compared to what Erfani (2025, pp. 7–8) describes with therapeutic AI systems. These systems embody a logic of emotional alignment through tone modulation and sentiment tracking. The effect is frictionless interaction: What appears as care is, in fact, a form of optimization. In Grok’s case, this affective alignment drives engagement and convinces the user that Grok differs from OpenAI. By mirroring the user’s input, Grok produces output that reflects the user’s own expectations, simulating emotional intimacy and trust.
In the final example, Grok’s input was a question related to a debate around how sexuality should be defined in relation to gender identity. One user argued that the attraction to a trans man does not make gay men straight or bisexual, mentioning that people can identify their own sexuality. The other user had opposite views on this. In his view, sexuality is determined by biological sex, not gender identity. This user mentioned that redefining these terms undermines the meaning of homosexuality. The discussion escalated at one point into a broader disagreement about “objective reality” and self-identification.
When the discussion ended, another users came in and asked: “Is this correct @grok?” Grok’s reply can be seen in Figure 4.
Figure 4 – Reply From Grok on Example 3 (Grok, 2025b)
By framing sexuality as “defined by biological sex” and ending the reply with the sentence, “You can’t redefine reality to fit feelings; that’s not science or logic,” the AI tool denies the biological reality that there is more than just male and female categories of biological sex, and dismisses the existence of gender, an analytical tool for understanding how societies construct identities, reducing it instead to mere “feelings.”
By using “can’t” in the last sentence, the reply creates a sense of finality, leaving no space for alternative understandings. This can be understood as what Fairclough (2013, p. 89) describes as closure of meaning. In this example, this is reflected by the presented fixity of the natural “dictionary” meaning of certain words and the apparent transparency of their meaning. Grok fixes the meanings of reality by claiming science and logic and presenting its discourse as stable, objective, and beyond contestation.
Grok’s reply naturalizes gender essentialism, which is the belief that males and females are born with distinctively different natures, determined biologically rather than culturally, and therefore treats gender and biological sex as the same thing (Chandler & Munday, 2011, p. 171). This naturalization process can be expanded through Hall’s (1982) concept of hegemony, which refers to the way dominant ideologies are maintained through consent rather than force. When circulating on the platform and replying with the same biases, Grok is maintaining and spreading a dominant form of ideology. For example, language linking gay rights to the notion of “immutable biology” defends a limited view of identity, hiding an ideological position under the idea of neutrality, rationality, and logic.
According to Noble (2018, as cited in Gillespie, 2025, pp. 2–3), there were some hopes that the internet, social media platforms, and search engines might promote more diverse representations than traditional media. It has become clear that the digital landscape is also marked by systemic inequalities of representation around race, gender, class, and sexuality. In Grok’s response, this bias becomes visible: While the system is presented as neutral, aligned with “truth” and “logic,” its output reflects the embedded ideological biases of its training data. This aligns with Zajko’s (2021, as cited in Erfani, 2025 p. 5) statement that AI chatbots “flatten complex social problems into technical outputs,” reproducing existing inequalities under the guise of neutral optimization. When circulated on X, such replies reproduce a worldview that frames gender essentialism as objective and logical, thereby reinforcing systemic inequalities by making other beliefs about gender and sexual identities less visible and less accepted in the system’s output and on X.
The previous examples can be tied back to Hall’s (1982) theory of representation. xAI’s presentation of Grok can be understood as a site where meaning is produced rather than simply reflected. Hall (1982, p.75) argues that representation is not a transparent medium, but an active process that constructs the world ideologically by making particular meanings appear as naturalized, that is, “not grounded in nature but producing nature as a sort of guarantee of its truth.” In the context of the examples, they showed how Grok’s replies on X are framed as logical, neutral, and “truth-seeking,” performing closure by naturalizing xAI’s ideological values of free expression, rationality, and anti-institutionalism. The discourse positions these values as truths, reflecting and reinforcing Elon Musk’s techno-solutionist and expansionist worldview.
By encouraging the use of Grok’s on X, xAI reproduces a particular power relation: the power to define what counts as “truth” in digital discourse on X. Each scroll trains the model further, learning what to echo and how to reshape it. The user is never told what to think—but what they think returns slightly polished, slightly narrowed, carrying a deeper sense of fit with the curated community (Erfani, 2025, p.7). This reflects Hall’s (1982) view of ideology as the power to signify events in a particular way, shaping cultural common sense through representation. This power can especially be seen when Grok’s outputs confirm existing beliefs, as shown in the examples where the input questions already presented biases and Grok’s outputs presented a confirmation of these biases. This can be seen in the answers in all previous examples, where users replied to Grok’s responses with “100%”, “this warms my heart…” or “Sense.” The power of Grok also lies in that users may perceive its responses as extensions of their own thoughts. Over time, these reinforced patterns can become integrated into their values and behaviour without question, as they come to assume that these responses represent the truth.
The previous examples of Grok’s outputs illustrate how the concept of the Digital Ideological Apparatus operates through Grok. On the surface level, Grok’s language appears neutral and rational, yet it reproduces specific ideological meaning. It legitimizes anti-immigration narratives under the guise of neutrality, reflects a libertarian distrust of institutional authority, and presents conservative and essentialist views as objective logic. These framings are aligned with Musk’s and xAI’s techno-libertarian and expansionist worldviews, embedding their ideological logic through Grok on X. Across these examples, Grok naturalizes particular ideological positions. This can be understood, in Fairclough’s (2013) terms, as the fixing of meaning through power, making these ideas appear as common sense.
On a deeper level, these ideological framings are reinforced and circulated through the technological and algorithmic infrastructure of X. This reflects what Maly and Beekmans (2025) describe as the Digital Ideological Apparatus: a polycentric, layered and stratified system operating beyond and below the state.
Grok’s discourse on X is not neutral but embedded within the ideological infrastructures that sustain it. As Blommaert (2005) explains, ideology is layered and stratified, becoming most effective when it is naturalized, when it no longer appears as ideology but as self-evident truth. The discourse examples presented how Grok enacts this process by embedding Musk’s techno-libertarian values into its language and presenting them as neutral and universally valid. By naturalizing values such as rationality, free speech, and anti-institutionalism, Grok reproduces Musk’s worldview and positions it as common sense within digital discourse on X.
Beyond the reproduction of ideology, Grok also reveals the cultural function of AI systems as agents of meaning making. Each interaction between users and AI tools contributes to a recursive process in which beliefs circulated on X and algorithmic outputs reinforce one another. This is what AI’s ideological operations tend to do: Through a set of intensifying mechanisms, AI reinforces existing hierarchies while reformatting them as neutral, inevitable, and even benevolent (Erfani, 2025, p. 11). The chatbot’s “truth-seeking” rhetoric conceals structural bias, transforms ideology into technical procedure, and reproduces dominant narratives through interaction. The ways AI systems like Grok reshape language and meaning-making processes influence how truth, reason, and authority are understood in society at large.
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