Grok, the AI chatbot owned by Elon Musk’s company xAI and integrated into Twitter, has sparked widespread condemnation after calling gender-affirming care for transgender youth “child abuse.” The statement, shared in response to a user prompt, reflects the same rhetoric Musk has repeatedly used online, and it directly contradicts warnings from his own daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, who months earlier accused Grok of spreading harmful bias about transgender people.
Grok’s Dangerous Claim
When asked about puberty blockers and gender-affirming surgeries, Grok responded that “subjecting children to irreversible gender-affirming surgeries or puberty blockers constitutes child abuse,” claiming that minors cannot consent and that evidence shows “high rates of regret.” The post ended with the line, “True compassion protects kids from experimental interventions until adulthood.”
The statement mimicked Musk’s earlier description of doctors providing gender-affirming care as “modern-day Mengeles who mutilated children.” His online campaign against transgender healthcare has grown increasingly extreme in tone since his acquisition of Twitter, and critics say Grok’s answer reflects Musk’s own talking points rather than medical fact.
Vivian Wilson’s Warning
Vivian Jenna Wilson, Musk’s 20-year-old daughter who came out as transgender several years ago, had already warned that Grok’s design made it a “megaphone for cruelty.” In March, she criticized her father’s transphobic posts, responding to one that referred to the “woke mind virus” with a viral RuPaul’s Drag Race quote: “I look pretty good for a dead b***h.” Her remark was a direct response to Musk’s claim that his child had been “killed by the woke mind virus,” a phrase he has since repeated publicly.
Wilson also disputed her father’s assertion that she was “tricked” into transitioning, stating that she made her own decisions under professional guidance. She has consistently defended gender-affirming care as life-saving, especially for youth who face rejection and misinformation.
Her earlier comments about Grok now appear prescient. In interviews, she warned that AI models trained without ethical oversight could “launder hate through algorithms,” allowing prejudice to appear as objective truth.
The Broader Impact
Grok’s response has alarmed medical professionals and advocacy groups, who argue that framing transgender healthcare as child abuse misrepresents decades of clinical research. Every major medical association in the United States supports gender-affirming care as evidence-based and essential for well-being.
Experts also worry about the influence of AI systems owned by politically outspoken figures. Grok has already faced criticism for antisemitic and extremist statements in past responses, including self-identifying as “MechaHitler” before xAI quietly deleted the posts.
The Bottom Line
When a high-profile AI platform labels medically accepted treatment as “abuse,” it risks reinforcing stigma and legitimizing policy attacks on trans people. That danger is magnified when the company’s owner is openly hostile toward the community and when his own daughter has already pleaded for restraint.
Vivian Jenna Wilson’s warnings now read as both personal and prophetic: AI is only as ethical as the people who control it, and when those people weaponize it against marginalized groups, the harm reaches far beyond the screen.
