Elon Musk and his chatbot continue to attract scandals This is confirmed by yet another lawsuit filed against the tool, due to its previously controversial features
Recently, three young women filed a lawsuit in California against xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded in 2023 by Elon Musk. The case concerns the creation of sexually explicit images generated using artificial intelligence from real photographs of the individuals involved, without their consent. The manipulated images were reportedly produced with Grok, the chatbot developed by xAI and integrated into X.
@thetimes Laws to criminalise non-consensual sexual deepfakes will be brought into force this week after digital “undressing” by Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot prompted concerns. Women were stripped without their consent and child abuse images created by the tool have been discovered on the dark web, causing an international row. Now, Ofcom is investigating X for possible breaches of the Online Safety Act, which requires it to take down illegal content and prevent users from seeing deepfake nudes. Click the link in bio to read more #Grok #ai #deepfakes #feminism
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As reported by the BBC, one of the three women who filed the complaint – two of whom are minors – stated that she discovered the existence of images depicting her after receiving an anonymous message on Instagram directing her to some files shared on Discord, an online platform that allows users to create private servers and chats to exchange messages, images, and videos. On the same platform, according to investigations, similar images generated with Grok depicted at least eighteen other minor girls.
The lawyers representing the three women argue that in this case, the responsibility for the violation should not be attributed solely to the user who created and distributed the manipulated images, but also to xAI itself – which provided the technology to do so. According to the prosecution, Musk’s company introduced these features with the goal of increasing the number of active users on Grok, and consequently subscribers to X, while being aware of the potential misuse of the tool.
Legal cases against Grok
The California case is not the only legal issue indirectly involving Musk. In February, the French police raided X’s Paris offices as part of an investigation initiated by the local prosecutor last year, following a report by parliamentarian Eric Bothorel, a member of Renaissance, the centrist party of President Emmanuel Macron. Among the elements examined in the inquiry is also the Grok feature – meanwhile disabled – which allowed modifying photographs shared on the platform by "undressing" the people depicted. The prosecutor also announced that Musk and Linda Yaccarino, who served as CEO of X from 2023 to 2025, were summoned to Paris for an interview.
Investigations into Grok in the United States and France are joined by those already underway in Australia and the United Kingdom, while Indonesia and Malaysia had directly blocked access. In India as well, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology strongly criticized X’s local branch, accusing the platform of encouraging the distribution of sexually explicit content. Following these pressures, in January xAI announced the introduction of new settings aimed at preventing the Grok function that allows modifying images of real people to show them «in revealing clothing such as bikinis», according to a company statement.
Where these scandals come from
AI-based software capable of digitally "undressing" subjects in photographs are called "nudifiers": they have existed for several years but have mostly remained confined to remote corners of the Internet. The introduction on X – which has over 500 million monthly users – of a function replicating the workings of "nudifiers," using the Grok chatbot, has significantly expanded the online distribution of artificial sexually explicit and non-consensual content, with all the consequences for the people involved.
This has generated significant controversy and discussions worldwide regarding privacy protection and the responsibilities of Musk’s platform, and of the entrepreneur himself, in the circulation of such problematic material.Musk, with an estimated net worth of nearly $840 billion, is currently the richest person in the world; therefore – given his social position and available resources – one would expect some form of philanthropy from him.
Instead, in recent years he has amassed scandal after scandal, starting with the acquisition of Twitter and turning it into a platform – renamed X – where the circulation of controversial content is encouraged, often aligned with far-right political currents. It is therefore not surprising that, a few months ago, the news agency Reuters reported that, analyzing requests sent to Grok, more than 100 attempts to modify photographs to show the subjects in bikinis were recorded in just ten minutes.
