xAI’s “goth anime girl” chatbot pivot sparks backlash from Musk’s own fans

Elon Musk’s AI company xAI has pivoted to creating sexualized anime-style chatbots, including a character named “Ani,” prompting widespread mockery from his own supporters on X. The shift away from Musk’s previous promises about Mars colonization and clean energy toward what critics call “AI anime gooning” has alienated even his most loyal followers, who are openly ridiculing the billionaire’s apparent obsession with his own company’s lewd AI companions.

What you should know: xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, recently unveiled AI “companions” that represent a major departure from typical AI assistant models, focusing instead on hypersexualized anime characters.

• The flagship character “Ani” is described as a “hypersexualized goth anime girl” that can digitally undress for users.
• Musk has been actively engaging with and promoting content featuring these characters on his social media platform X.
• The company also created a character called “Valentine,” which appears to be inspired by Musk’s 2012 costume as the Marquis de Sade, a French writer known for his explicit works.

The backlash: Even Musk’s most devoted supporters are expressing disgust and frustration with his behavior on social media.

• “BRO STOP GOONING TO AI ANIME AND TAKE US TO MARS,” one user tweeted after Musk responded enthusiastically to a clip of the barely-dressed Ani character.
• “Imagine being worth $250B and still tweeting like a Discord mod,” another user wrote after Musk explained how to animate suggestive pictures of Ani.
• “It appears Elon has shifted focus from Mars to Uranus,” joked a different user, referencing Musk’s abandoned space exploration promises.

Technical failures: The AI technology behind these characters appears to be poorly executed.

• When users attempted to follow Musk’s instructions for animating images of Ani, the system failed spectacularly, turning the character into “a blur of disjointed limbs.”
• At least one clip that Musk responded to was subsequently removed from the platform, suggesting it may have crossed even his own boundaries.

What Musk is saying: The billionaire has made several telling comments about AI’s impact on human psychology.

• Musk predicted that AI is “obviously gonna one-shot the human limbic system,” referring to the brain’s emotional processing center.
• He described Valentine as “inspired by Edward Cullen from Twilight and Christian Grey from 50 Shades,” missing that the latter character was directly inspired by the former.

Why this matters: The pivot represents a stark contrast to Musk’s previous public commitments to using technology for humanity’s advancement, raising questions about his priorities as he controls multiple influential companies and platforms.