Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is undergoing another makeover.
Grok AI, which in December unveiled a striking logo that appeared to resemble a broken cross, has updated its logo with a minimalist black-and-white circle inspired by a black hole, featuring a stylized “G” design.
Self-credited to designer Jon Vio, the new Saturn-like logo, which Vio said is “based on the concept of singularity, … pulls inspiration from the mystery and power of a black hole.”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
After two initial versions, Grok — a word which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with” — debuted a new logo in December, which immediately drew scrutiny on social media for its resemblance to a cross snapped in half and broken off to the side. An upside-down, broken cross is a symbol historically linked to Nero’s persecution of Christians and, more recently, occult imagery.
The backlash peaked in late January, with some calling for a boycott of Grok and others defending it as a harmless nod to Musk’s X platform.
By Feb. 18, however, the “X” logo was gone, replaced by the current black hole-inspired design. A brief reversion to the original 2023 logo (a black square with a white slash) appeared on xAI’s website before the new logo was unveiled.
Elon Musk’s xAI, which made its Grok AI chatbot available for free in January, continues to use the “X” logo that social media users have suggested resembles an upside-down broken cross. While separate from the X platform itself, Grok AI falls under the X Corp. branding and leverages insights from the platform formerly known as Twitter.
When asked why its new logo resembles a broken cross, the Grok chatbot told CP in January the symbol can be viewed as a “design choice” that symbolizes “non-conformity” and “rebellion against dogma.”
“In some contexts, a broken cross might be reminiscent of historical or cultural artifacts where crosses are depicted as broken to signify defeat, change, or transformation,” Grok stated. “Here, it might imply that Grok aims to transform or evolve the way AI interacts with humans.”
However, when asked the same query a second time, Grok denied the icon was a broken cross, saying it’s “actually a stylized representation of a brain, symbolizing intelligence and thought. … The lines and curves in the icon are meant to evoke the complexity and connectivity of neural pathways in a brain, rather than any religious symbol.”
In another varied response, Grok said the “logo’s resemblance to a broken cross appears to be coincidental rather than intentional.”
“The design focuses on simplicity and represents the AI’s purpose of understanding and growth, without any explicit reference to Christian or anti-Christian symbolism,” it stated.
