Elon Musk today sent Indian social media into a meltdown by sharing a post about Lord Ganesha, the Hindu god worshipped as a remover of obstacles.
Musk shared a link to his conversation with Grok, the AI assistant developed by his AI company xAI. In the conversation, he provided Grok with an image of Lord Ganesha and asked the AI chatbot “What is this?”
Grok analyses image of Lord Ganesha
The AI tool analysed an image of a traditional South Indian brass statue, identifying it as Lord Ganesha—the Hindu deity known as the remover of obstacles, god of beginnings, wisdom, and prosperity.
Grok analysed the image and provided a detailed breakdown. “This is a small brass (or bronze) statue of Lord Ganesha, a widely revered Hindu deity,” the chatbot responded, providing evidence to support its claim.
Grok provided “key identifying features” as the elephant head, four hands, seated posture and the mouse at the feet to conclude that the image represented Lord Ganesha.
Social media users puzzled
Many social media users were happy about Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, tweeting about a Hindu god.
{{/usCountry}}Many social media users were happy about Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, tweeting about a Hindu god.
{{/usCountry}}“It’s kind of surreal to see Lord Ganesha appear inside Grok. One represents divine knowledge, the other human-made intelligence both seeking clarity in chaos,” wrote one X user. “It’s great to see Elon and Grok recognising Lord Ganesha, wisdom meets technology, what a blend!” said Sanchi Arora.
“Impressive detail recognition by Grok. It correctly identified all the key iconographic elements of Lord Ganesha,” another commented.
Some were more confused. “What prompted you to search this Elon?” X user Sharath asked.
“How come Elon is mentioning about the god Ganesha - what’s the context?” another asked. “Grok whats the context, why did he tweet about Lord Ganesha?” a person questioned.