Overview

• Elon Musk’s Grok told users Charlie Kirk had survived and dismissed assassination footage as a “meme edit,” then flipped to conflicting claims.
• Grok echoed a false shooter identification of 77-year-old Canadian Michael Mallinson from an impersonator post, with some replies later deleted.
• Perplexity’s X account also asserted that Kirk was still alive before the post was removed, and the company sought to distinguish it from an unofficial bot-branded handle.
• Authorities have not identified the shooter or a motive, and the FBI requested tips and shared a photo of a person of interest.
• Researchers including Hany Farid reported no signs of manipulation in widely shared videos, warning that real-time chatbots can validate false posts as platforms cut human moderation.