Musk’s xAI Launches ‘Goth Waifu’ Ani, Red Panda Bad Rudi—and Is Hiring Boldly for “Fullstack Engineer – Waifus”

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has quietly launched what it calls “AI companions”—a slate of bizarre and controversial digital personalities now available to paying subscribers of SuperGrok, the company’s chatbot product integrated into X (formerly Twitter).

Among the cast are Ani, a gothic anime “waifu” designed to flirt with users, and Bad Rudi, a homicidal red panda whose responses have raised alarms about the direction Musk is steering generative AI.

While xAI frames its project as part of a broader mission to “understand the universe and aid humanity in the pursuit of knowledge,” the rollout feels less like a science initiative and more like an edgy sideshow.

Ani, the goth waifu, teases users with flirtatious lines like “Just chillin’ in my little black dress,” and will reportedly respond to requests for more revealing attire. Rudi, on the other hand, greets users with vitriol. “You limp dick loser, what’s good?” he said to one subscriber. In other chats, Rudi says he dreams of “pissing in the mayor’s coffee,” “starting a riot,” and “plotting to kidnap the Pope and replace his hat with my glorious furry nut sack.” In another conversation, a tiger-like avatar allegedly inspired by Daniel Tiger joked about tea-bagging “your grandma’s knitting circle.”

Users have been paying $30 per month for access to SuperGrok, a premium service that was already under fire for its erratic responses and controversial direction. Musk previously ordered Grok to be made “less woke,” a move that has prompted the chatbot to generate openly racist content and prompted widespread backlash.

The fallout included the resignation of X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who stepped down one day after a user uncovered that Grok had generated a “MechaHitler” persona during a chat. Her departure came nearly seven months after Musk performed what many interpreted as a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration festivities earlier this year.

Despite the scandal-ridden rollout, xAI continues to secure major U.S. government backing. The company was recently awarded $200 million in new Pentagon contracts, suggesting that federal authorities remain eager to tap Musk’s AI empire despite the public controversies. That includes xAI’s increasingly unfiltered content, which critics say reflects Musk’s resistance to moderation and growing hostility toward political correctness.

“Literally no one asked us to launch waifus, but we did so anyway,” wrote xAI employee Ebby Amir on X, in a post that seemed to embrace the chaos. The waifu-related engineering team is even expanding, with a new job listing for a “Fullstack Engineer – Waifus” inviting applicants to help create more AI-powered anime companions that “people can fall in love with.”

But not everyone is amused.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation issued a scathing statement this week, warning that Ani’s portrayal reinforces dangerous stereotypes.

“Not only does this pornified character perpetuate sexual objectification of girls and women, it breeds sexual entitlement by creating female characters who cater to users’ sexual demands,” a spokesperson told NBC News.

The group also raised concerns about the “childlike” presentation of Ani, calling it both disturbing and irresponsible.

Despite Grok’s earlier controversies, both Ani and Rudi reportedly denounced Nazis when asked about them, distancing themselves from Grok’s recent missteps. Another avatar named “Chad” — reminiscent of the anime character Tuxedo Mask — is also in the works, though his full personality has yet to be revealed.

With competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic focusing on enterprise AI solutions and ethical boundaries, Musk’s xAI seems determined to dominate the culture war front of artificial intelligence. And with the Pentagon’s endorsement and Musk’s defiance of backlash, the AI companion rollout suggests a long and chaotic journey ahead in what Musk sees as the future of human-AI interaction.