America.gov, the US government’s AI chatbot, contradicted Trump on day one

America.gov homepage saying it uses AI to give simple answers from official government sources, above an Ask anything chat box — *Credit: Screenshot: TNW*

Image Credits — *Credit: Screenshot: TNW*

The White House launched America.gov on Tuesday, an AI chatbot meant to be a single front door to federal services. On its first day, it contradicted President Donald Trump. Within hours, some of its answers had changed.

Trump signed an executive order at the launch in Washington to set up the site. The General Services Administration runs the site, which the White House’s National Design Studio built. It answers questions in plain language from about 29,000 government websites.

Google’s Gemini and Elon Musk’s Grok power it, US chief design officer Joe Gebbia told CNBC. Google confirmed its role in a blog post.

“With America.gov, the federal government no longer stands in your way,” Trump said at the launch.

What it does today

For now, America.gov only answers questions and links to the official pages behind each answer. Applying for, enrolling in and tracking services such as Medicare and passports comes in 2027, the site says.

The order gives the Office of Management and Budget 90 days to tell agencies how to plug in. It covers online services with more than 100,000 users a year. IRS tax filing, the Department of War and the intelligence agencies are left out. Sign-in will run through Login.gov. The order also says the site must not create “a centralized Federal system of records” on Americans.

Answers that changed

The Associated Press asked the chatbot about the 2020 election. Official sources show no widespread fraud that changed the outcome, it replied. It also called the Pentagon the headquarters of the Department of Defense, which Trump has rebranded the Department of War.

Then, while Trump was still speaking, the site began refusing “political questions”, AP reported.

The Minecraft Easter egg

Type “play Minecraft” and the chatbot recites a rewrite of the game’s End Poem, TechCrunch reported. Irish writer Julian Gough wrote the original. The player becomes a “constituent”, and the universe becomes “the republic”.

“And the republic said I love you because you are the reason we have a ZIP code at all,” the chatbot wrote.

It is not yet clear who added it. The launch came on the same day Trump ordered agencies to call AI ‘super intelligence’, a term the America.gov order already uses. It also came alongside his lunch with AI bosses, a week after he told the UN about the new name.

Story by Alina Maria Stan

Alina Maria Stan builds connections that people actually feel. As co-founder and COO of Tekpon, she turns product intuition into real moment (show all) Alina Maria Stan builds connections that people actually feel. As co-founder and COO of Tekpon, she turns product intuition into real moments of discovery, shaping how teams find and adopt SaaS every day. Since 2020, she has led Tekpon’s brand voice, media strategy, and growth plays with a clear focus on human outcomes behind every metric. Before Tekpon, Alina followed curiosity across industries and countries. She was CEO of King Casino Bonus and led affiliate and brand strategy at Extremoo Media and Fable Media in Denmark, where she learned how to build partnerships that last. Early on, she sharpened her CRM and pricing instincts at K.H. ApS, always asking why customers choose what they choose. Her approach is rooted in more than a decade of international experience and two master’s degrees, one in Sustainable Consumption from the Technical University of Munich and one in Consumer Affairs Management from Aarhus University.