Elon Musk’s company xAI has faced global backlash in recent days over sexualised “deepfake” images of women and children created by its Grok chatbot.
Here are the essential facts about the scandal, how governments have responded and the company’s attempts to cool the controversy.
– ‘Put her in a bikini’ –
Grok — Musk’s version of the chatbots also offered by OpenAI and other generative AI companies — has its own account on the X social network allowing users to interact with it.
Until last week, users could tag the bot in posts to request image generation and editing, receiving the image in a reply from Grok.
Many took advantage of the service by sending Grok photos of women or tagging the bot in replies to women’s photo posts.
They would ask it to “put her in a bikini” or “take her clothes off” — receiving photorealistic altered images in response.
Such AI-powered nonconsensual “nudifying” services had previously been available on niche websites, but Grok became the first to take it mainstream with social media integration and offer it for free.
Outrage grew as some users were discovered generating sexualised images of children and minors.
Still others used the tool to generate bikini images of women killed in the deadly New Year fire at Swiss ski resort Crans-Montana, as well as the woman shot and killed by an immigration officer in Minneapolis.
Last week, an analysis of more than 20,000 Grok-generated images by Paris non-profit AI Forensics found that more than half depicted “individuals in minimal attire” — most of them women, and two percent appearing to be under-18s.
– How have countries reacted?
Indonesia on Saturday became the first country to block access to Grok entirely, with neighbouring Malaysia following on Sunday.
India said Sunday that X had removed thousands of posts and hundreds of user accounts in response to its complaints.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a government source told AFP 3,500 posts and 600 accounts had been removed.
Britain’s Ofcom media regulator — which can fine companies up to 10 percent of global revenue — said Monday it was opening a probe into whether X failed to comply with UK law over the sexual images.
“If X cannot control Grok, we will — and we’ll do it fast,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told MPs from his Labour Party.
France’s commissioner for children Sarah El Hairy said Tuesday she had referred Grok’s generated images to French prosecutors, the Arcom media regulator and the European Union.
Digital affairs minister Anne Le Henanff had earlier called the restriction of image creation to paying users “insufficient and hypocritical”.
And the European Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, has ordered X to retain all internal documents and data related to Grok until the end of 2026 in response to the uproar.
The bloc has already been investigating X over potential breaches of its digital content rules since 2023.
“We will not be outsourcing child protection and consent to Silicon Valley,” Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Monday.
“If they don’t act, we will.”
– How did the company respond?
“We take action against illegal content… including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement,” X’s safety team posted on January 4.
Musk himself said last week that anyone using Grok to “make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content”.
But he made light of the controversy in a separate post, adding laughing emojis as he reshared to his 232 million followers on X a post featuring a toaster wrapped in a bikini.
By January 9, Grok began responding to all requests for image generation or editing by saying the service was restricted to paying subscribers.
Musk has also fired back at politicians demanding action.
Critics of X and Grok “just want to suppress free speech” Musk posted on January 10.
