Elon Musk has said Grok, the A.I.-powered chatbot that his company developed, should be “politically neutral” and “maximally truth-seeking.”
But in practice, Mr. Musk and his artificial intelligence company, xAI, have tweaked the chatbot to make its answers more conservative on many issues, according to an analysis of thousands of its responses by The New York Times. The shifts appear, in some cases, to reflect Mr. Musk’s political priorities.
Grok is similar to tools like ChatGPT, but it also lives on X, giving the social network’s users the opportunity to ask it questions by tagging it in posts.
One user on X asked Grok in July to identify the “biggest threat to Western civilization.” It responded that the greatest threat was “misinformation and disinformation.”
“Sorry for this idiotic response,” Mr. Musk groused on X after someone flagged Grok’s answer. “Will fix in the morning,” he said.
The next day, Mr. Musk published a new version of Grok that responded that the greatest threat was low “fertility rates” — an idea popular among conservative natalists that has transfixed Mr. Musk for years and something he has said motivated him to father at least 11 children….
Announcing the Safeguarding Democracy Project’s Fall Lineup of Events and Webinars, Focused on the Fairness and Integrity of the 2026 Midterms
The Risk of Federal Interference in the 2026 Midterm Elections
Tuesday, September 16, 12:15pm-1:15pm PT, Webinar
Register here.
Ben Haiman, UVA Center for Public Safety and Justice, Liz Howard, NYU Law Brennan Center for Justice, and Stephen Richer, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School
Richard L. Hasen, moderator (Director, Safeguarding Democracy Project, UCLA)
UCLA School of Law is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. This session is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit.
Lessons from the 2024 Elections for 2026 and Beyond: A Conversation with Nate Persily
Tuesday, October 7, 12:15pm-1:15pm PT, Room 1337 UCLA Law and online
Register here for in-person. Lunch will be provided.
Register here for Webinar.
Richard L. Hasen, Director, Safeguarding Democracy Project, UCLA and Nate Persily, Stanford Law School
UCLA School of Law is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. This session is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit.
Redistricting and Re-Redistricting Controversies and the 2026 Elections
Thursday, October 16, 12:15pm-1:15pm PT, Webinar
Register here.
Guy-Uriel Charles, Harvard Law School, Moon Duchin, Director, Data and Democracy Research Initiative, University of Chicago, Michael Li, NYU Law Brennan Center for Justice, and Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Harvard Law School.
Richard L. Hasen, moderator (Director, Safeguarding Democracy Project, UCLA)
UCLA School of Law is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. This session is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit.
Media, Social Media, and the Changing Election Information Environment in 2026
Thursday, October 30, 12:15pm-1:15pm PT, Webinar
Register here.
Co-sponsored by the Institute for Technology, Law & Policy
Danielle Citron, UVA Law School, Brendan Nyhan, Dartmouth College, and Amy Wilentz, UCI Emerita
Richard L. Hasen, moderator (Director, Safeguarding Democracy Project, UCLA)
UCLA School of Law is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. This session is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit.
The Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act, and the 2026 Elections
Tuesday, November 18, 12:15pm-1:15pm, PT, Webinar
Register here.
Ellen Katz, University of Michigan Law School, Lenny Powell, Native American Rights Fund, and Deuel Ross, Legal Defense Fund
Richard L. Hasen, moderator (Director, Safeguarding Democracy Project, UCLA)
UCLA School of Law is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. This session is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit.
“Trump Family Profits Even With Tepid Launch of Crypto Tokens”
The Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture known as World Liberty Financial had a tepid first day of open-market trading on Monday, surging in value initially before losing most of those gains.
But because of an unusual insider arrangement, the Trump family was still assured a considerable payday as its expanding universe of crypto ventures continued to break norms for business dealings by presidential families.
The big event on Monday was the start of exchange-based trading of World Liberty Financial’s cryptocurrency token, which is traded as $WLFI. It was created last October by the Trump family and its partners, who include Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy for President Trump.
But until this week, the World Liberty organizers did not allow the token to be traded on public markets, meaning that after the 35,000 original buyers purchased a total of about $550 million worth of the tokens through this spring, they could not easily sell them. The organizers voted in July to lift that restriction.
That set the stage for the token’s trading debut on Monday on some of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, Bybit and OKX.
The original buyers were allowed to cash out of as much as 20 percent of their purchases, and some of them apparently did just that. Many of these original buyers had purchased the World Liberty token at a fraction of the price it entered the market with on Monday, meaning they were in line for considerable profits.
The price of the token started Monday at 8 a.m. at 20 cents and surged in the first five minutes to as high as about 40 cents.
It then fell rapidly, settling at about 22 cents as of 5 p.m., lower than many followers of World Liberty, at least on social media, had expected.
To help prop up the trading price, one major $WLFI holder, Justin Sun, announced on Monday that he had no immediate plans to sell his tokens. Mr. Sun had been targeted by securities investigators during the Biden administration, only to see his case frozen once Mr. Trump returned to office.
The Trump family itself controls about 22.5 billion of the $WLFI tokens, suggesting that its holdings as of Monday afternoon were worth about $5 billion, making it one of the most valuable Trump assets, worth far more than its real estate holdings, such as its hotels and golf courses.
“Democrats face an increasingly frustrated base over redistricting”
Democrats are scrambling to keep their nascent crusade against President Donald Trump’s national redistricting push from fizzling out.
House Democrats are considering establishing an organization to raise and spend for their remapping efforts as they look to counter an aggressive Republican move that could determine control of the chamber next year, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private conversations. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has privately discussed redistricting with blue-state governors, according to another person.
The Center for American Progress is urging blue states to abandon their independent redistricting commissions. And, through private strategy sessions and public appeals, Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu is asking Democrats across red and blue states to take a no-holds-barred approach to resisting GOP redistricting. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin praised Wu during a meeting in Minneapolis last week for “igniting a national movement within this party.”
“This is an all-out call to arms,” Wu, who helped lead Texas Democrats’ quorum break, said in an interview. “That chorus of ‘everyone needs to get off their ass and do something’ is growing louder and louder. And more and more elected Democrats who are seen as doing nothing — their commitment to our country is going to be questioned.”…
State of Louisiana, in Motion for Divided Argument for the Supreme Court “Vehemently” Takes the Position that the Creation of a Race-Conscious District as Required by the Voting Rights Act is Unconstitutional
The mask is truly off.
Federal District Court Holds Unconstitutional South Dakota Law Moving Filing Deadline for Initiatives from 6 Months Before Election to 9 Months
Here’s the opinion in Dakotans for Health v. Johnson.
“Already Pardoned by Trump, Jan. 6 Rioters Push for Compensation”
Bizarro World continues:
The rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, secured a shocking double victory this year.
President Trump granted them clemency for their crimes on his first day back in the White House, and in the… Continue reading
“Election Law for the New Electorate”
My article on ongoing shifts in voter behavior and what they mean for election law is now out in the Journal of Legal Analysis. Here’s the abstract:
The American electorate is transforming—undergoing its most sweeping changes in half a… Continue reading
California Legislature Moves to Allow Gig Workers to Engage in Collective Bargaining After California Appellate Court Accepted the Argument in Our Amicus Brief in the Prop. 22 Case That Prop. 22 Could Not Bar Legislature from Doing So
This is gratifying. Back in 2022, I filed an amicus brief in the California Court of Appeal with Professors Joey Fishkin and Franita Tolson, along with co-counsel Kathryn Eidmann and Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel. We did not take a… Continue reading
“Redistricting Push Creates Chaos for Incumbents in Both Parties”
NYT:
When President Trump set out to force a gerrymander in Texas that would help Republicans keep control of the closely divided House, he argued it was a simple matter of fairness.
“We are entitled to five more seats,” the… Continue reading
“Trump Says He Will Sign Executive Order Mandating Voter I.D.” (And No, He Doesn’t Have the Power to Mandate Voter ID)
NYT:
President Trump said late Saturday that he would issue an executive order to require voter identification for all U.S. elections, a continuation of his efforts to overhaul the nation’s election laws, which he has long attacked and falsely blamed… Continue reading
“If Redistricting Goes as Expected, Which Party Will Come Out Ahead?”
Nate Cohn for the NYT:
The next phase of the redistricting war is starting to come into focus.
Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and perhaps Florida — all Republican-controlled states — seem likely to join Texas and California in attempting to redraw… Continue reading
I Spoke with Dahlia Lithwick for Slate Amicus Podcast on the Risks to the Voting Rights Act at the Supreme Court and the Emerging Redistricting Wars
Slate Plus listeners can find the podcast here.
Federal Court in Kohls v. Bonta, in Striking Down California Deep Fake Law on First Amendment Grounds, Sees Constitutional Path for More Narrowly Tailored Laws Aimed at False Statements About When, Where, and How People Vote
Via Eugene Volokh (who is cited in the court’s opinion), here’s a snippet from Kohls v. Bonta:
AB 2839 regulates a broad spectrum of election-related content that is “materially deceptive” and permits any recipient of this content to sue… Continue reading