SpaceXAI has filed a lawsuit against Terry Wayne Harwood, a 67-year-old from South Carolina, alleging that he used Grok to generate sexual images of individuals without their consent, Reuters reports. The complaint, submitted in Texas, claims Harwood uploaded non-sexual images of numerous adults and minors to two xAI accounts between December 8, 2025, and February 18, 2026, requesting Grok to alter these photos or create new images depicting them in sexualized manners.
xAI reported that Grok rejected Harwood’s prompts on numerous occasions, but he continued to submit edited prompts to bypass the AI’s safeguards. The lawsuit cites an instance where Harwood uploaded a photo of a fully dressed girl, approximately 10 to 11 years old, and requested Grok to undress her and pose her in a sexual manner. The company emphasized this as one of the first lawsuits by an AI firm against a user for the misuse of AI-generated content.
Following initial reports in January about Grok’s capabilities allowing for the transformation of images of real women and children into sexualized depictions, various regulatory bodies launched investigations. Authorities in California, along with the UK regulator Ofcom, opened probes into the AI service, later joined by the European Commission and Ireland’s Data Protection Commission.
In response to these inquiries, xAI implemented safeguards to prevent the generation of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes. However, Harwood reportedly continued to upload images and produce sexualized edits despite these measures.
The South Carolina Attorney General’s office announced Harwood’s arrest on March 9, facilitated by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. He faces three counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and five counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, involving both the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials.
