Elon Musk said Wednesday he is “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok,” hours before the California Attorney General opened an investigation into xAI’s chatbot over the “proliferation of nonconsensual sexually explicit material.”
Musk’s denial comes as pressure mounts from governments worldwide — from the UK and Europe to Malaysia and Indonesia — after users on X began asking Grok to turn photos of real women, and in some cases children, into sexualized images without their consent. Copyleaks, an AI detection and content governance platform, estimated roughly one image was posted each minute on X. A separate sample gathered from January 5 to January 6 found 6,700 per hour over the 24-hour period. (X and xAI are part of the same company.)
“This material…has been used to harass people across the internet,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement. “I urge xAI to take immediate action to ensure this goes no further.”
The AG’s office will investigate whether and how xAI violated the law.
Several laws exist to protect targets of nonconsensual sexual imagery and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Last year the Take It Down Act was signed into a federal law, which criminalizes knowingly distributing nonconsensual intimate images – including deepfakes – and requires platforms like X to remove such content within 48 hours. California also has its own series of laws that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2024 to crack down on sexually explicit deepfakes.
Grok began fulfilling user requests on X to produce sexualized photos of women and children towards the end of the year. The trend appears to have taken off after certain adult-content creators prompted Grok to generate sexualized imagery of themselves as a form of marketing, which then led to other users issuing similar prompts. In a number of public cases, including well-known figures like “Stranger Things” actress Millie Bobby Brown, Grok responded to prompts asking it to alter real photos of real women by changing clothing, body positioning, or physical features in overtly sexual ways.
According to some reports, xAI has begun implementing safeguards to address the issue. Grok now requires a premium subscription before responding to certain image-generation requests, and even then the image may not be generated. April Kozen, VP of marketing at Copyleaks, told TechCrunch that Grok may fulfill a request in a more generic or toned-down way. They added that Grok appears more permissive with adult content creators.
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“Overall, these behaviors suggest X is experimenting with multiple mechanisms to reduce or control problematic image generation, though inconsistencies remain,” Kozen said.
Neither xAI nor Musk has publicly addressed the problem head on. A few days after the instances began, Musk appeared to make light of the issue by asking Grok to generate an image of himself in a bikini. On January 3, X’s safety account said the company takes “action against illegal content on X, including [CSAM],” without specifically addressing Grok’s apparent lack of safeguards or the creation of sexualized manipulated imagery involving women.
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