Elon Musk's Grok AI Falsely Claims MSNBC Used Old Footage of Anti-Trump Protests

Fact-Checking 'No Kings' Protest Footage

• 🎯 Demonstrations against President Donald Trump's policies, known as the 'No Kings' protests, occurred across major US cities and in Europe over the weekend.
• ⚠️ Allegations surfaced online that the news channel MSNBC used old footage to exaggerate the scale of these protests.

Grok AI's False Claim

• 🤖 Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, claimed on X that footage shared by MSNBC was from a 2017 counter-protest in Boston.
• ❌ This claim was widely shared, with some users accusing MSNBC of "propaganda" and "faking a revolution."

Verification of MSNBC Footage

• ✅ FRANCE 24's Charlotte Hughes confirmed that MSNBC did not use old footage.
• 🔍 The video shared by MSNBC was indeed from an 'No Kings' demonstration in Boston on October 18, 2025.
• 🔬 Reverse image searches of the footage revealed similar aerial shots published by other media outlets on the same day, with no prior occurrences dating back before October 18, 2025.

Grok's History of Misinformation

• ⚠️ This is not the first instance of Grok providing false information; it previously misidentified images related to US National Guard troops deployed in response to protests.
• 💡 Grok had claimed those images were from 2017, when former US President Joe Biden pulled troops out of Afghanistan, but fact-checkers confirmed they were authentic and recent.
• ⚠️ While Grok eventually corrected itself, its history suggests a pattern of providing false and misleading answers, potentially favoring Musk or Trump's viewpoints.