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Five secretaries of state on Monday called on Elon Musk to correct social media platform X’s artificial intelligence search assistant for allegedly sharing false information about the 2024 presidential election.
In their letter to Musk, the secretaries said X’s AI chatbot, Glock, misled users about voting deadlines in numerous states shortly after President Joe Biden lost his reelection bid against former President Donald Trump on July 21.
Musk, the billionaire CEO, Tesla SpaceX CEO John Biden supported Republican presidential candidate Trump until Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.
Within hours of Biden’s withdrawal, Glock’s post claimed that “the deadline to vote has passed in some states for the 2024 election,” according to a letter to Musk from the secretaries of state, who oversee each state’s elections.
The letter, sent on letterhead from Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, claimed the posts included key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and New Mexico, as well as Alabama, Indiana, Ohio, Texas and Washington.
“In all nine states, the opposite is true,” the letter, first reported in the paper, said. The Washington Post.
“Voting has not yet closed, and there may be changes to the candidates holding the offices of President and Vice President of the United States between now and the close of future polls,” the letter said.
The letter was signed by Simon and co-signed by Al Schmidt of Pennsylvania, Steve Hobbs of Washington, Jocelyn Benson of Michigan and Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico.
Schmidt is a Republican. The other four signatories are Democrats.
CNBC has reached out to Musk for comment on the letter.
Musk previously said he built it. to donate A political action committee that supports President Trump and the Republican Party.
The group, America PAC, is under investigation by Benson’s office for attempting to collect voter data in key battleground states.
In their letter Monday, the secretaries wrote that Groke’s false claims were “shared on multiple social media platforms” within hours of Biden’s announcement.
The letter noted that Grok is only available to X Premium and Premium+ subscribers and included a disclaimer asking users to verify their answers.
But “misinformation about the voting deadline was repeatedly captured and shared in multiple posts, reaching millions of people,” the officials wrote.
“Furthermore, Mr. Glock continued to repeat this false information for over a week until it was corrected on July 31, 2024,” the letter alleges.
The letter urged X to follow the example of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which is programmed to direct users to nonpartisan sites. translation: When asked about the US elections.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Steve Hobbs is Washington state’s secretary of state. An earlier version had the wrong name.
