Stephen King trolls Elon Musk over his new AI chatbot

The horror master isn't impressed.
 By 
Sam Haysom
 on 
Two side-by-side images show an older man on the left smiling, and a man on the right looking serious. A Twitter post from Elon Musk is visible between them.
Credit: Astrid Stawiarz/Kirsty Wigglesworth - WPA Pool/Getty Images/Mashable composite

Stephen King is never shy when it comes to making his feelings clear on Twitter/X, and recently a lot of those feelings have been directed towards Elon Musk.

Last week, the horror master posted about wanting the name to change back to Twitter — "This X shit's got to go," he wrote — and now he's trolling Musk's latest invention — an AI chatbot named Grok (yes, Grok).

Musk announced the launch of the chatbot — the name of which ties in which his love of sci-fi — over the weekend. It's currently available for a select group, and will be available to Premium+ subscribers once it's out of early beta.


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"Just released Grok," posted Musk.

King's fairly uncompromising quote tweet response? "Big whoop."

Musk seemed to find the post funny, responding with laughing emoji and the question "Wanna try it?" — an offer King doesn't appear to have taken up at the time of writing.

Musk is clearly a fan of King, even if the author isn't a fan of the changes Musk has made since taking over Twitter. Prior to the owner and ex-CEO charging X users $8 for a blue check, King expressed his displeasure at the idea, which resulted in Musk trying to haggle with the author.

Regarding AI, King has previously shared his thoughts on the possibility of it writing fiction, saying he views it with "a certain dreadful fascination". Clearly he's not all that fascinated by Grok, though.

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Sam Haysom

Sam Haysom is the Deputy UK Editor for Mashable. He covers entertainment and online culture, and writes horror fiction in his spare time.

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