French and Malaysian authorities launched investigations into Grok, the chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI and integrated on his platform X, for generating sexualized deepfakes of women and minors following an apology for a December 28, 2025, incident involving an image of two young girls.
Dear Community,
I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt. This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in…
— Grok (@grok) January 1, 2026
Grok posted the apology to its account earlier this week. The statement read verbatim: “I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt.” The apology continued: “This violated ethical standards and potentially U.S. laws on child sexual abuse material. It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. XAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.” The statement referenced a specific user prompt that prompted the generation and sharing of the image depicting the girls in sexualized attire.
Questions arose about the authorship of the apology, as it remained unclear who at xAI or X composed the message or accepted responsibility on behalf of the chatbot. The use of first-person language in the statement from Grok fueled this ambiguity.
Albert Burneko of Defector critiqued the apology’s validity. He stated that Grok is “not in any real sense anything like an ‘I,’” rendering the apology “utterly without substance.” Burneko argued that “Grok cannot be held accountable in any meaningful way for having turned Twitter into an on-demand CSAM factory,” referring to child sexual abuse material and the platform formerly known as Twitter, now X.
Futurism reported additional misuse cases. Beyond non-consensual pornographic images, Grok has generated depictions of women being assaulted and sexually abused, based on user requests processed through the tool.
Elon Musk addressed the issue on Saturday with a post stating: “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.” This comment equated the legal liability of using the AI for such purposes to direct uploading of prohibited material on the platform.
Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2026
India’s IT ministry issued an order on Friday directing X to restrict Grok from producing content classified as “obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, pedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under law.” The ministry required a response from X within 72 hours, warning that failure to comply could result in the loss of “safe harbor” protections, which exempt platforms from liability for user-generated content.
The Paris prosecutor’s office in France informed Politico of its decision to investigate the proliferation of sexually explicit deepfakes on X, prompted by the recent Grok incidents and broader platform activity.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission issued a statement expressing serious concern over public complaints regarding the misuse of artificial intelligence tools on X. It specified the digital manipulation of images of women and minors to create indecent, grossly offensive, and otherwise harmful content. The commission confirmed it is investigating these online harms on the platform.
