Elon Musk’s Grok made the world less safe – his humiliating backdown gives me hopium | Van Badham

Thu, 15 Jan 2026

The AI chatbot’s torrent of nonconsensual deepfakes isn’t its first scandal and won’t be its last. Responsible governments should simply ban it

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Billionaire and career Bond-villain cosplayer Elon Musk has been forced by public backlash into a humiliating backdown over use of his AI chatbot, Grok. Watching the world’s richest man eat a shit sandwich on a global stage represents a rare win for sovereign democracy.

Because – unlike his company history of labour and safety abuses … his exploding rockets … his government interventions that deny aid to the starving … disabling Starlink internet systems in war zones … sharing “white solidarity” statements … or growing concern about overvaluations of his company’s share price – the nature of Grok’s latest scandal may finally be inspiring governments towards imposing some Musk-limiting red lines.