Elon Musk’s “Wikipedia Killer” Grokipedia Launches… And It’s Already Full of Copied Content

So, Elon Musk’s new AI company, xAI, has officially launched its new online encyclopedia, Grokipedia. Musk has been claiming this will be the alternative that “replaces Wikipedia.”

However, on its very first day, the site is already getting dragged for allegedly copying content directly from Wikipedia.

Grokipedia looks and feels a lot like Wikipedia, with a big search bar and standard article formatting. But it’s currently tiny in comparison. The site claims to have about 885,000 articles, while the English version of Wikipedia alone has over 7 million.

In a typical Elon Musk move, he stated, “Grokipedia 1.0 will be 10x better, but I think even at v0.1 it’s better than Wikipedia.”

The “Verified by AI” Problem

A note under the articles claims the text has been “verified” by Grok, the xAI large language model. This is a major red flag, as LLMs are known for “hallucinating” and confidently presenting false information. It’s generally not a good idea to use an AI to fact-check itself.

It’s Literally Copied from Wikipedia

Despite Musk promising a “huge improvement,” many pages appear to be direct lifts.

For example, if you check the page for the PlayStation 5, a notice at the bottom reads: “This content is adapted from Wikipedia.” The text on that page is reported to be nearly identical to Wikipedia’s. The same warning and copied text were found on pages for the MacBook Air and the Lincoln Mark VIII.

A spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation (the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia) summed it up perfectly: “Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to even exist.”

Interestingly, not all content is a direct copy. Reports indicate that pages on controversial political and scientific topics, like climate change, show significant differences from their Wikipedia counterparts.

It also seems users can’t actually edit articles right now. An “edit” button exists on some pages, but clicking it only shows previous changes without saying who made them, and there is no apparent way for users to submit their own edits.

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