Elon Musk’s Grokipedia Under Fire for Copying Wikipedia Pages
October 28, 2025
Elon Musk’s latest AI venture, Grokipedia, has drawn widespread criticism after several of its entries were found to contain content directly copied from Wikipedia. Marketed by Musk as a “massive improvement” over the world’s most trusted online encyclopedia, Grokipedia appears to rely heavily on the very platform it claimed to surpass.
From Bold Claims to Familiar Content
Grokipedia, launched by xAI as a Wikipedia-like knowledge platform, features a simple interface with a search bar and articles structured similarly to Wikipedia entries. However, early users quickly noticed that many pages — including those about the MacBook Air, PlayStation 5, and Lincoln Mark VIII — contained nearly identical wording to Wikipedia’s versions.
At the bottom of several articles, Grokipedia includes a disclaimer: “The content is adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.” While the label suggests adaptation, in practice, numerous pages appear to be direct copies rather than rewritten versions.
Fact-Checking Controversy
Each Grokipedia entry includes a note claiming that Musk’s AI assistant “Grok” has fact-checked the information — a claim that has raised eyebrows. Given that large language models are prone to generating false information, the reliability of Grok’s “fact-checks” has already become a source of skepticism among AI experts.
Wikipedia Responds
“Even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist,” said Lauren Dickinson, spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia. Dickinson reaffirmed that Wikipedia’s content is free to use under the Creative Commons license, provided attribution is clear and content is not misrepresented as original work.
Wikipedia, founded in 2001, remains one of the most visited and trusted sources of information on the internet. Its nonprofit structure, volunteer-driven editorial system, and commitment to neutrality have kept it independent from commercial pressures and AI-driven rewriting tools.
Selective Edits and Controversial Narratives
Beyond plagiarism concerns, some Grokipedia pages have sparked controversy for how they reinterpret scientific consensus. For instance, while Wikipedia’s page on climate change emphasizes near-universal agreement among scientists that global warming is caused by human activity, Grokipedia’s version questions that consensus, claiming that “media and advocacy organizations exaggerate alarm” and influence public policy without sufficient empirical evidence.
A Work in Progress — or a Copy in Progress?
According to the site’s homepage ticker, Grokipedia currently hosts over 885,000 entries — far fewer than Wikipedia’s seven million English articles. The platform is labeled as “version 0.1,” suggesting that it is still in early development. Yet, critics argue that launching a “revolutionary” AI encyclopedia with borrowed content undermines its credibility from the start.
Elon Musk had previously responded to user complaints about Grok’s reliance on Wikipedia sources, promising on X (formerly Twitter) that “this will be fixed by the end of the year.” However, as of now, little has changed.
Wikipedia’s Enduring Relevance
For more than two decades, Wikipedia has remained the internet’s human-centered knowledge backbone — written, edited, and verified by volunteers across the globe. Its open structure and nonprofit independence make it unique among modern information platforms increasingly dominated by AI systems.
Despite repeated attempts by private companies to replicate its success, none have matched Wikipedia’s transparency or community-driven reliability. As Wikipedia approaches its 25th anniversary, it continues to represent the web’s original promise: freely accessible, trustworthy, and collaboratively built knowledge for everyone.
“Human-created knowledge remains the foundation of AI,” Dickinson noted. “Even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist.”