Elon Musk Launches AI-Driven Encyclopedia Grokipedia

Elon Musk’s online encyclopedia Grokipedia is now live. It is an alternative to Wikipedia based upon artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Additionally, it appears to be more aligned toward a conservative ideology than Wikipedia. Grokipedia was first discussed when Musk replied to an idea proposed by investor David Sacks through X last month. He described Wikipedia as “woke” and stated that it heavily relies upon outlets such as The New York Times and NPR.

Grokipedia appears to represent a significant shift in how knowledge is presented online. Rather than relying upon volunteer editors, Grok AI, the chatbot developed by Musk’s xAI, will generate content and determine whether the information is accurate (“fact-check”). In addition, users cannot modify web pages directly but can provide suggestions through a pop-up form. At this time, there appear to be several entries on Grokipedia that have been identified as being adapted from Wikipedia under a Creative Commons License. Many other entries also appear to be identical or very similar to those on Wikipedia, including the entry for Monday. Musk plans to discontinue Grokipedia’s usage of Wikipedia as a source of material by the end of next year.

Differences Between Grokipedia and Wikipedia

It is evident, as far back as the beginning of the site, that Grokipedia presents different content options than Wikipedia. For example, Grokipedia’s entry on Donald Trump did not include two items that were included in Wikipedia’s entry on him: the luxury jet purchased from Qatar and the Trump-themed cryptocurrency token. Similarly, Grokipedia’s entry on Musk did not reference the hand gesture he made at a rally in January 2025. That hand gesture was referenced in Wikipedia’s entry on Musk. The Wikimedia Foundation responded to the launch of Grokipedia by emphasizing the collaborative nature of human-created knowledge and stating that even Grokipedia “could never exist without Wikipedia.”

An Open Knowledge Competition?

Grokipedia enters into a competitive landscape that has traditionally been controlled by Wikipedia. According to Similarweb, Wikipedia is one of the top visited websites in the world. Wikipedia was founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger as a nonprofit organization, which has continued to rely on volunteers. However, in recent years, criticism of Wikipedia’s editorial processes and governance has increased. Many critics, particularly some who identify themselves as conservative, have expressed concern regarding Wikipedia’s use of anonymous editors and what they perceive to be an ideologically skewed approach. At launch, Grokipedia claimed to have approximately 885,000 articles, which is significantly less than the number of articles available on Wikipedia. Industry observers have expressed concerns that the introduction of Grokipedia, which relies upon machine-generated content, could potentially harm the integrity of open knowledge. They warn that the replacement of human expertise with machine generation may contain unknown risks.