Elon Musk's Grok AI Determines Which Political Party Has Performed Better for the Economy

Elon Musk's "anti-woke" AI chatbot Grok is now apparently a Democratic operative.

That's our takeaway, at least, from Grok's response to progressive activist Alex Cole after he tagged the chatbot on X and asked it whether Republicans or Democrats were "better for the economy in the last 30 years."

Grok was so eager to shill for Elon Musk's opposition that instead of staying within the timeframe Cole asked, it summarized politics and economics since World War II — a period during which "Democrats have outperformed Republicans on the economy," the chatbot noted.

"[Gross domestic product] growth averages 4.23% under Dems vs. 2.36% under GOP," Grok continued. "Job creation? 1.7% yearly for Dems, 1.0% for Republicans. Also, 9 of the last 10 recessions started under Republican presidents."

"Data speaks louder than party lines," it declared pithily.

It appears the first part of Grok's reply was taken almost verbatim from the Wikipedia page for "US economic performance by presidential party." A similarly Wiki-scraped summary also comes up on Google's AI Overview when searching "democrats vs republicans good for the economy last 30 years."

Still, it's the thought that counts — and per Grok's "thinking," Democrats outperform Republicans, Musk's chosen party and that of his alleged co-president, Donald Trump, by wide margins.

To put it to the test, we submitted the same question to Grok and got a much more long-winded answer that included a "vibes check" suggesting that Republicans were hit harder by "external shocks" like 9/11 and COVID while Democrats "got luckier with timing" with the 90s tech bubble and the post-2008 stock market crisis recovery period.

As for its "bottom line," Grok confidently asserted that "over 30 years, Democrats nudge ahead on growth, jobs, and markets — [Bill] Clinton’s golden years and [Barack] Obama’s steady hand tip it."

"Republicans got slammed by crises (Bush) or didn’t sustain gains (Trump)," it continued matter-of-factly. "Debt’s a wash — both spent big when pushed. No one’s perfect, and Congress plus the Fed muddy the waters, but the numbers lean D."

Though it's far from the first time the "maximally truth-seeking" AI has countered the politics of its creator, this instance is particularly humbling at a time when Musk is trashing Democrats for suggesting he and his boss are driving the United States headlong into a recession.

And speaking of Trump: when someone else on Cole's thread asked it to name "the worst president ever," the chatbot ranked Trump among the absolute dregs.

"Historians often point to James Buchanan — his inaction on slavery and the secession crisis led to the Civil War," Grok replied. "Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce also rank low for similar failures in leadership. Trump’s 2024 score of 10.92 out of 100 in the Presidential Greatness Project doesn’t help his case either."

"Pick your poison," Grok concluded.

More on Grok: Elon's Grok 3 AI Provides "Hundreds of Pages of Detailed Instructions" on Creating Chemical Weapons

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