Musk targets ‘biased’ Wikipedia with AI alternative

Elon Musk has announced plans to build a new online encyclopedia to rival Wikipedia, which he and other critics describe as politically biased. He claimed his version will be a “massive improvement” over the existing site.

The planned service, called Grokipedia, will be powered by Musk’s xAI company and its generative AI model Grok, which is already integrated into his social platform X. Musk also shared user reactions to Tuesday’s announcement.

These included a mock logo merging Grok and Wikipedia, a meme depicting Musk as the grim reaper preparing to take down the platform, and suggestions from Wikipedia co-founder-turned-critic Larry Sanger on how to ensure neutrality in a user-edited knowledge base.

Musk unveiled the effort in response to a post by White House crypto and cyber adviser David Sacks criticizing Wikipedia. Sacks called the site the work of “an army of left-wing activists” rather than the neutral, consensus-based knowledge source it claims to be. He warned that Wikipedia’s prominence in Google search results and its role in training AI models make its perceived bias “a huge problem.” 

Sacks’ critique followed a recent interview in which Sanger told journalist Tucker Carlson that Wikipedia’s rules – such as excluding conservative outlets from its list of “reliable sources” – result in systemic bias.

Conservative commentators have long accused Wikipedia, which relies on donations, of betraying its promise of neutrality on contentious topics. Musk previously mocked the platform in the past as “Wokipedia” and once offered $1 billion if it agreed to rename itself “Dickipedia” for a year.

Musk acknowledged that Grok used Wikipedia data in its training but said developers “should have this fixed by end of year.”