Elon Musk uses Grok to imagine the possibility of love

After Tesla shareholders approved CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion compensation package earlier this week, the billionaire spent the weekend doing what he often does — posting on his social media platform X.

At 4:20 a.m. EST on Saturday, Musk shared a video created using Grok Imagine, the new AI-powered photo and video generator developed by his company xAI. The post, timestamped at the meme-famous “420,” featured a clip generated from his own prompt:

“She smiles and says, ‘I will always love you.’”

The resulting video shows a synthetic woman standing on a rainy street, mouthing the phrase in an artificially generated voice — an unsettling yet cinematic example of the tool’s capabilities.

Just 24 minutes later, Musk followed up with another Grok Imagine clip — this time depicting actress Sydney Sweeney saying, “You are so cringe,” in a noticeably robotic voice that clearly wasn’t her own.

Grok Imagine prompt:

She smiles and says “I will always love you” pic.twitter.com/cjDu3MuDCZ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 8, 2025

X Users Call Musk’s AI Posts ‘Divorced’ and ‘Sad’

The Grok-generated videos quickly went viral — not for their realism, but for their awkward, emotional tone. Users on X mocked Musk’s first post as “the most divorced post of all time,” while another described it as “the saddest post in the history of this website.”

Others criticised the increasingly personal tone of AI-generated content, as more people turn to chatbots and virtual companions for emotional expression. Musk, however, seemed unbothered by the reactions, continuing to post through the weekend.

Joyce Carol Oates Weighs In

Perhaps the sharpest criticism came from 87-year-old literary icon Joyce Carol Oates, who weighed in on a separate thread about Musk’s wealth and public persona.

“It’s so curious,” Oates wrote, “that [Musk] never posts anything that indicates he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates — friends, nature, pets, movies, music, books. In fact, he seems totally uneducated, uncultured.”

She added that “the poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’”

Musk promptly fired back:

“Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human.”

Grok Imagine and xAI’s Expanding Tools

The incident marks one of the first public uses of Grok Imagine, part of xAI’s expanding suite of generative media products that integrate with X. The tool enables users to create photo-realistic videos and animations from text prompts, bringing xAI closer in competition with OpenAI’s Sora and Meta’s Vibes.

While Musk has promised Grok will “push the boundaries” of creativity and expression, critics argue that AI-generated human likenesses — especially those of real celebrities — could spark ethical and legal debates around consent and digital identity.