Factually! with Adam Conover - Did Elon Tell Grok to Promote “White Genocide”?

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

(In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!)It would be kind of bad if the richest man in the world used his massive social media platform to promote a conspiracy theory, wouldn't it? Visit https://groundnews.com/factually to stay fully informed, see through biased media and get all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through my link.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. All right, I have a bad cold today, but I am doing the video anyway because we have a lot to talk about. Last week, Elon finally left the White House after stories started a leak about how everyone in DC hates his guts. Damn, dude bought an election, but he can't buy friends. He couldn't even make the lady who killed her dog like him. But you know, this doesn't mean that we are rid of Elon or his influence on our political

system yet, because something really weird has been going on with Elon and Trump lately. I first noticed it when, a few weeks ago, X's AI chatbot Grock started to reply to every question with wild rants about a racist South African conspiracy theory. Like when someone asked Grock for a normal baseball stat, Grok responded, Gunnar Henderson's 2025 season WAR is approximately 6.5, based on available statistics. Regarding the South African context, the Kill the Boers song is highly controversial. Claims of white genocide are debated. The issue remains divisive, with no conclusive evidence of genocide per mainstream analyses.

I mean that is extremely weird behavior to be quite honest. Grok pivoted from a question about baseball to an answer about white genocide. Those two things are not connected at all unless you're Ty Cobb. But you know what, let's look at another one. At one point, when asked to explain a tweet from the Pope in pirate terminology, Grok responded, Arr matey, the White Genocide tale? It's like whispers of a ghost ship sinking white folk with farm raids as proof. Oh man, AI is really fun, huh? Next to how many people Hitler killed in the form of a dirty limerick. But then, after just a few hours of mysterious chaos, the White Genocide freakout ended, and X, which

hosts Grok, announced that someone had altered the system prompt that invisibly instructs every Grok request, and they blamed it on a rogue employee. Now, who was that rogue employee? You know, I'm not sure, but it must have been someone. I mean, it's not like anyone at X grew up as a white person in South Africa during apartheid, right? And certainly nobody who works at X grew up as a white person in South Africa during apartheid, right? And certainly nobody who works at X has openly said that they believe in the white genocide conspiracy theory, right? And hey, coincidentally, you know what happened around the same time?

Did anybody manage to catch that meeting Trump had with the president of South Africa? White South Africans are fleeing because of the violence. Huh. Is there a chance that these two incidents might be related? Well, in this video, I'm going to tell you the strange story of how a racist conspiracy theory from a country halfway around the world has infected the minds of some of the most powerful people in America, and has even changed American foreign policy. But first, if you'd like to support this channel and the hardworking people behind it directly, and I hope you do, you can do so at patreon.com slash Adam Conover and as always you can find all my stand up

tour dates at adamconover.net. So look, if you need a little refresher on world history, apartheid was a brutally racist system of oppression instituted by white colonists in South Africa that lasted from 1948 to 1994. Basically, white people showed up in South Africa and decided to set up a system of literal, legalized segregation and white supremacy over the South African inhabitants. Under apartheid, there were legally protected whites-only buses, whites-only beaches, whites-only schools, whites-only neighborhoods, and these separate worlds were created by the violent displacement of millions of black South Africans. It was a brutal system. Every black man over the age of 16 was legally required to carry a reference book

everywhere he went at all times with his employment information, evaluations from employers, and even fingerprints. Black South Africans weren't even allowed to vote or hold political office in their own country until 1994 when apartheid ended. That's after the f***ing Gameboy came out. And when South Africans protested apartheid, they were met with extreme violence, like when police opened fire on peaceful protesters in 1960 and killed at least 69 people. One of the activists who fought against apartheid was a man you've probably heard of, Nelson Mandela.

He was imprisoned for almost 30 years for advocating for freedom for black South Africans. And after Mandela was released, he became one of the major black political figures who negotiated how the country would move forward. And you know what was so amazing about these negotiations is that against all odds, they laid the groundwork for a peaceful end to a violent apartheid regime. Mandela was elected president and under his governance, South Africa adopted a new constitution which granted equal rights for all people, black and white. And I just have to stop and point out how incredible that is.

After lifetimes of violent, brutal oppression and disenfranchisement, black South Africans came together with their white South African oppressors to agree on a peaceful transition of power to a democratically elected government. You know, a lot of people would have understood if black South Africans had angrily demanded retribution, if they had turned the violence of their oppressors back on them, but the most amazing part of this story is that they didn't. This peaceful transition of power was so remarkable that Mandela became a universally beloved figure around the world on the level of Mahatma Gandhi or, I don't know, Tom Hanks. He literally won a Nobel Peace Prize for this work. But you know what? Predictably, there were a few

white people in South Africa who weren't too happy about the end of apartheid because, you know, they benefited from it. And hey, you know who was a rich white person who lived in South Africa before the end of apartheid? Elon Musk. Elon doesn't like to talk about this time in his life, but people he grew up with and went to school with describe a sheltered, lavish world where white families lived in palatial homes

while being waited on hand and foot by black servants. Musk's classmates described themselves as clueless at the time because they were surrounded by misinformation and propaganda from the white government. The government would even black out entire sections of newspapers that reported unrest so that they couldn't read it. And if you ask Elon's dad what this time was like, he seems to pine for the years of apartheid, saying, quote, it was a good time because we had no crime there were no problems people blacks and whites got on very well with

each other which is just fucking crazy like Elon's dad is saying there were no problems during a period where 69 people were murdered by their own government for protesting their inability to vote that does not sound peaceful to me and Elon's dad isn't the only one pining for the good old days. Says the end of apartheid, a fringe group of white South Africans have begun to promote an unfounded conspiracy theory

that black people are murdering white farmers, which they call a white genocide. And this theory is so false that even white farmers say it's a lie. But that has not stopped Elon from promoting this baseless claim. is so false that even white farmers say it's a lie. But that has not stopped Elon from promoting this baseless claim. He recently tweeted that quote, very few people know that there is a major political party in South Africa that is actively promoting white genocide.

And this of course is not true at all, but that has not stopped Elon. He has also complained about the South African government being quote racist because they wouldn't grant his company Starlink an exemption from their laws that require foreign businesses to partner with businesses owned by black South Africans. You know, racism. That thing where you don't coddle and give special treatment to the richest man in the world. It's a big problem. So the question I think we have to ask is, did Elon in the middle of a Ketamine binge get mad about Starlink, ask Grok about white genocide, get an answer he didn't like, and order some poor engineer to change the system prompt? Good f***ing question.

I mean, it doesn't seem that crazy to imagine. Elon has literally forced Twitter engineers to change code to boost his tweets just because it hurt his feelings when he didn't get enough likes. And also, did Elon maybe do this partly because he knew Trump was about to meet with the President of South Africa? Because it seems like a weird coincidence that less than a week after Grok's white genocide freakout, Trump had a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and in that meeting, Trump seemed to be taking his cues from Grok. Death. Death.

Death. Horrible death. Death. I don't know. I think anyone, white South Africans, are fleeing because of the violence. Death. Death. Horrible death.

What is he? A 19th century poet describing trench warfare? A ghost haunted by a grisly murder at an uptown estate? And look, maybe Trump came up with all this on his own, but Trump's specific accusation was the same as Grox. But you do allow them to take land. No, no, no, no. You do allow them to take land.

Nobody can take land. And then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them. And Trump even appears to have gotten the idea from videos on X which he used as evidence in the meeting. He literally showed his Twitter feed to the president of another nation on a f***ing projector screen. His counterpart, President Cyril Ramaphosa, uncomfortable but composed, sits through the so-called evidence of the claims.

These are burial sites right here. Yeah, kind of funny that the platform where Trump gets all his news just happens to start spouting off South African conspiracy theories right before Trump meets a South African president, isn't it? Well, President Ramaphosa responded to Trump's false accusations like a kindergarten teacher trying to explain why we don't poop inside of our pants. People who do get killed, unfortunately through criminal activity, are not only white people. Majority of them are black people.

Well, if you're wondering how he managed to keep his cool during that exchange, Cyril Ramaphosa was actually the chief negotiator under Nelson Mandela and literally negotiated the peaceful end of apartheid. So this guy has made his entire career out of talking down deluded old racist white guys. He's the crazy grandpa whisperer. And he's also correct because while South Africa did have over 26,000 murders last year, the vast majority of those murder victims were black people. In fact, of the 26,232 murders recorded in South Africa in 2024, only eight were farmers at all. So the white genocide conspiracy theory is obviously a complete myth, but it is even

wilder that it persists when you realize that white South Africans are still doing far better than black South Africans even after the end of apartheid. White Afrikaners are about 7% of the population of South Africa but they own 70% of the farmland. 64% of all boardrooms in South Africa are white and the typical black South African family has 5% of the wealth of the typical white South African family. The truth is that even though apartheid was abolished decades ago, it's still given white people in South Africa a durable advantage in that society. That is what racist regimes do, much like has happened in America since the fall of Jim Crow.

But that hasn't stopped Trump from giving preferential treatment and rolling out the red carpet for white South African farmers. Because at the same time that Trump has been demolishing refugee programs for other people around the world, he has started a brand new one that gives priority to white South Africans who want to move to the United States. Yeah, the dude hates immigration unless you are white. By the way, that last headline came from our sponsor, Ground News.

Working on these videos, it is really important to understand the full context of an issue, especially one like this. And that is why I use ground news in our research process. They have factuality and bias ratings for all of their stories, which helps you get a broad understanding of how an issue is being reported.

And that's especially important when a story is related to a conspiracy theory like this one. Like on this article, if you click bias comparison, you can see that right-leaning sources highlight claims of government-sponsored racial discrimination and persecution, reinforcing the conspiracy theory that white South Africans are being discriminated against. So if you want to use this helpful tool to understand how bias affects every story you read, check out Ground News. You can get 40% off if you use my special code Factually. go to groundnews.com slash factually. So even though the white genocide conspiracy theory is false, even though white South Africans

are not under any threat like that by any measure, Trump's Mission South Africa refugee plan explicitly gives them special treatment when immigrating to the U.S. And this is especially noteworthy because Trump has been suspending visas for over 20,000 already approved refugees to come to America. And look, it is worth saying out loud that this is actual racism. While black and brown people who truly need refugee status to stay alive are being turned down or even rounded up and illegally sent to prisons in other countries, including South Sudan, our president is explicitly focusing your tax dollars to grant refugee status

to people who do not need it because they are white. And even worse, the people he is granting refugee status to are f***ing weirdos. A lot of them are part of a South African white nationalist separatist movement that hopes to create a white utopia. And when you look at interviews with them, they literally trot out every racist cliché in the book. I've got many black friends. I had nothing to do with apartheid. If you're white, you're wrong in South Africa.

You are a land thief. You are a racist. And if you look at that same refugees' social media, yeah, it gets pretty bleak. In a since-deleted tweet, he called Jewish people, quote, untrustworthy and, quote, a dangerous group, and that, quote, they are not God's chosen. So, I mean, this should go without saying, but rolling out the refugee red carpet for someone who misses a former apartheid state

and has views this racist is just insane. This is like if after the end of Jim Crow, England started issuing special visas to Klan members who wanted to start a white utopia in Wales. Trump's refugee plan right now is literally to import more bigots to America, which is crazy because we already have plenty here. We don't need to bring home more from the racism store, we got enough at home. So if you need any more proof at this point that Trump and Elon and their friends have a lot of weird racist

conspiracy theoretical ideas Well, this is it and these weird ideas are going to hurt real people Because Trump is using this refugee runaround as an excuse to cut funding to South African HIV treatment programs Which have saved about 25 million lives worldwide. And that is not just bad for South Africans, it's bad for Americans too. Because the entire reason we had this program was that if you don't manage epidemics in other countries, they're much more likely to spread here and make Americans sick. This is real sh** that is affecting real people around the world. And that is why you should

not rejoice too quickly about Elon leaving the government. Because Elon Musk is an insane conspiracy theorist who just happens to own and solely control one of the largest communication platforms in the world. And as long as our president spends more time on Twitter than a friendless teen with an anime avatar, as long as he's addicted to making grok selfies of himself as a jacked Sith Lord, he'll be subject to the whims of Elon's ketamine-addled billionaire brain. And I don't really have a better conclusion for this video than to say... that's bad.

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