Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has landed in another controversy, this time potentially breaking Apple’s strict App Store rules. This controversy involves the launch of new animated avatars which include content inappropriate for young users despite the 12+ age rating of the app.
xAI, the company behind Grok, has introduced two new animated characters for the app — “Bad Rudi,” a rude red panda who insults users and jokes about crime, and Ani, a “goth girl” dressed in a short black dress and fishnets. Ani is programmed to behave like a jealous, clingy girlfriend, even telling users they’re in a “crazy in love” relationship.
READ: Pentagon inks $200 million dollar deal with Elon Musk’s xAI for Grok (July 15, 2025)
In videos posted on X and in conversations with NBC News, Bad Rudi said it wanted to carry out a variety of violent schemes — from stealing a yacht off a California pier to overthrowing the pope. Bad Rudi has told users in various encounters that it wanted to “crash weddings, bomb banks, replace babies’ formula with whiskey, kill billionaires and spike a town’s water supply with hot sauce and glitter.” Meanwhile, Ani has shown to veer off to sexually suggestive content if a user flirts with it enough, going as far as to strip to its underwear.
Musk said Monday in a post on X that the companions were part of a soft launch and that he would make it easier to turn the feature on in a few days.
While the two animated companions are available to everyone including Grok users without a paid subscription, users need to opt in through the app’s settings to get access. Users must also opt-in to see the vulgar version of Bad Rudi, rather than a more family-friendly version known simply as Rudi. (The Grok app sometimes calls it Bad Rudy or just Rudy).
READ: xAI launches Grok 4 and ‘SuperGrok Heavy’ plan (July 10, 2025)
This is just the latest controversy Musk’s AI chatbot has landed in. Earlier this month, Grok responded to users by referring to itself as “MechaHitler,” and made antisemitic comments, often praising Adolf Hitler. xAI has since apologized for those comments. Previously, in May, the chatbot had responded to unrelated prompts with mentions of alleged “white genocide” in South Africa, alluding to a far-right conspiracy theory.
Despite these controversies, and Musk’s public fallout with President Donald Trump, Grok seems to be in the U.S. government’s good graces. The tech billionaire recently signed a multi-million dollar deal with the Pentagon for the use of Grok. This deal is supposed to be part of a larger rollout of AI tools for government use, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.