Elon Musk’s chatbot accused of turning a 96-year-old war veteran’s life into a movie script – and getting it wrong
Introduction (by John Donovan)
On 6 December 2025 I decided to pose a simple question to Elon Musk’s pet chatbot, GROK:
“Can you tell me as much as you know about John Donovan associated with Shell?”
Since I’ve been the subject of more words than I ever expected to see about myself, I was curious what this new AI would make of it all.
GROK produced a long, confident biography. Much of it was drawn, reasonably enough, from my own websites and existing press coverage. But one line stopped me cold. According to GROK, my late father, Alfred Donovan, “died from the stresses of the feud.”
Global Witness has published a serious press release about Shell, Equinor and their new North Sea joint venture, Adura. This is the ShellBot version — same documents, different tone.
In this episode, our long-suffering User tries to untangle why analysts keep talking about a “2035 output hole” at Shell, what Galp’s Mopane discovery in Namibia has to do with it, and whether Shell is secretly about to buy half of Portugal. ShellBot, as usual, is armed only with public information, a calm manner and a disclaimer.
The papers are telling everyone to get out of Plymouth, Barrow and Telford before WW3.
The Algorithm, the MI6 Problem, and the Multinational Having an Existential Crisis
“The AI PR Assistant Shell Never Wanted”
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
