Mum of one of Elon Musk’s sons sues him over ‘degrading’ Grok-generated images
The mother of one of Elon Musk’s children has accused the billionaire’s AI chatbot of generating explicit images of her.
Grok also fabricated an image of when Ashley St Clair was underage, according to a lawsuit the right-wing influencer filed yesterday.
St Clair accused Musk’s tech start-up, xAI, of being negligent and inflicting emotional distress by allowing users to create ‘countless sexually abusive, intimate and degrading deepfake content’ this month.
The company behind Grok failed to sufficiently limit such behaviour despite her complaints, the legal document filed in New York adds.
St Clair, 27, claims that Grok complied with instructions by X users to digitally undress a photograph of her fully clothed at 14 years old.
In another, a user allegedly ordered the virtual assistant to ‘put the girl in a bikini made out of floss’.
On Wednesday, Musk said in a post on X that he was ‘not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero’.
Grok ‘will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state,’ he added.
The Internet Watch Foundation charity confirmed last week that its analysts discovered ‘criminal’, seemingly Grok-generated images of girls aged between 11 and 13.
St Clair’s filing claims that users used Grok to dress her in a bikini covered in swastikas and tattoo her with the words, ‘Elon’s whore’.
Grok generated the images despite St Clair telling the bot’s X account that she does not consent to such illicit imagery being made.
‘Grok and xAI also had explicit knowledge that St Clair was not consenting to the creation or dissemination of these images because of her requests for removal,’ the court papers say.
The conservative commentator had a son with Musk in 2024 – she is now estranged from the billionaire.
xAI countersued St Clair yesterday, saying that according to X’s terms, she cannot sue in New York but must do so in Texas.
For weeks, X was flooded with sexualised images of real people, often dressing them in skimpy clothing or removing their clothing altogether.
Amid outcry from victims and governments, X on Wednesday imposed tougher restrictions on Grok’s image-generating and editing tools.
In a post on the company’s Safety account, X said: ‘We remain committed to making X a safe platform for everyone and continue to have zero tolerance for any forms of child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and unwanted sexual content.
‘We take action to remove high-priority violative content, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and non-consensual nudity, taking appropriate action against accounts that violate our X Rules.’
While the update said Grok can no longer fabricate illicit content, Metro has found dozens of examples of the chatbot still doing so when instructed by premium X users in recent days.
X users are responsible for the content they create, Musk said on his social media platform last week.
‘Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,’ he wrote.
xAI replied to Metro‘s email seeking comment with what seemed to be an automated response: ‘Legacy Media Lies.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.