By Ademuyiwa Balikis
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has launched a new online encyclopedia called Grokipedia, designed to rival Wikipedia, which the billionaire has repeatedly accused of harboring ideological bias.
The platform officially went live on Monday, October 27, 2025, and is described by xAI as a truthful and independent alternative to existing online knowledge bases. According to details available on its website, Grokipedia is powered by xAI’s language model, Grok, and currently hosts between 800,000 and 900,000 articles generated and curated by the company’s AI systems.
Grokipedia’s layout and design closely resemble Wikipedia’s interface, with search bars, topic entries, and citations, though the platform is still labeled “v0.1”, indicating it is in a beta testing phase. Musk stated during the launch that the new encyclopedia represents a necessary step toward xAI’s goal of understanding the Universe, emphasizing that Grokipedia will provide a more balanced perspective than he believes Wikipedia currently offers.
However, early users and critics have raised concerns about the site’s content and neutrality. Reports indicate that several articles on Grokipedia are adapted or nearly identical to those on Wikipedia, raising questions about originality and compliance with Creative Commons licensing. Some entries have also drawn attention for ideological framing, particularly on topics such as gender identity, slavery, and social movements.
A report by Wired noted that Grokipedia’s entries on issues like transgender identity use language and perspectives associated with conservative discourse, while other pages, such as those addressing slavery, focus on critiques of projects like The 1619 Project.
Despite the controversies, Musk has maintained that Grokipedia’s mission is to correct the bias he claims exists on Wikipedia. The new platform aims to provide what he calls a free and open information space, where AI generated summaries present facts without what he perceives as editorial distortion.
On launch day, the site reportedly crashed briefly due to heavy traffic but was restored within hours. Since then, it has continued to attract widespread attention, with users testing the AI’s approach to factual accuracy and neutrality.
In response to the launch, the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages Wikipedia, reiterated that Wikipedia’s content is created, verified, and maintained by a global community of human volunteers. The foundation noted that even Grokipedia depends on Wikipedia to exist, given that much of its source material originates from Wikipedia’s open license database.
Observers say Grokipedia’s long term success will depend on whether it can ensure accuracy, avoid partisanship, and build a sustainable user community similar to Wikipedia’s volunteer driven model.
While Musk has framed the project as part of his broader mission to advance human understanding through AI, critics argue that Grokipedia may end up amplifying the very biases it claims to challenge.
