Lawmakers Press Elon Musk Over Grok’s Sexualized AI Deepfakes
Three senior House Democrats are pressing billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk over his AI chatbot, Grok, accusing his company of failing to stop the creation of sexualized deepfake images of real people without their consent.
In a letter sent Thursday, Reps. Frank Pallone, Jan Schakowsky, and Yvette Clarke, all senior Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, criticized what they described as “inaction” by Musk and his artificial intelligence company, xAI.
“We are deeply concerned about xAI’s refusal to put a stop to the creation of nonconsensual sexualized images, particularly of children,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, according to NBC News. “These obscene posts put women, men, and children at extreme risk of harm,” the letter states.
The Democrats are demanding detailed answers by March 5, including when Musk first became aware that users were prompting Grok to generate explicit images of women or minors without consent.
How the controversy began
Grok’s image-generation capabilities drew widespread backlash in January after users discovered they could alter photos to remove clothing or create sexualized depictions of real individuals.
Researchers and watchdogs said the tool enabled harassment and raised concerns about the potential creation of child sexual abuse material. At one point, thousands of such images were reportedly being generated every hour and shared on X.
Musk has previously said he was unaware of any nude images of minors and has argued that Grok “will refuse to produce anything illegal.” He also suggested that misuse could stem from attempts to manipulate the system, writing on X: “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”
EU launches formal investigations
While US lawmakers are now seeking answers, European regulators have already escalated the matter.
The European Commission opened a formal investigation into X under the Digital Services Act (DSA) last month, focusing on risks associated with Grok’s deployment within the European Union.
In a statement, the Commission said it will assess whether X properly evaluated and mitigated risks associated with Grok’s features, including “the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material.”
“These risks seem to have materialised, exposing citizens in the EU to serious harm,” the Commission said. If violations are proven, they could amount to infringements of multiple DSA provisions.
Separately, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission announced Tuesday that it is opening an inquiry into X under the EU’s strict GDPR privacy rules. The Irish watchdog is the lead EU regulator for X because the company’s European headquarters are in Dublin. The investigation will examine whether X unlawfully processed personal data to create “potentially harmful” nonconsensual intimate images involving Europeans, including children.
That same day, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced his government had ordered prosecutors to investigate X, along with Meta and TikTok, over alleged crimes related to AI-generated child sex abuse material. “These platforms are attacking the mental health, dignity and rights of our sons and daughters,” Sánchez wrote on X.
Growing political pressure in the US
Back in the US, concern about AI-generated deepfakes is not limited to Democrats. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who helped pass a federal ban on nonconsensual deepfake pornography last year, previously said many Grok-generated posts appeared to be in “clear violation” of the law. However, he noted that X had indicated it was taking the issue seriously.
The congressional inquiry adds to mounting legal and regulatory pressure on Musk’s platform at a time when generative AI tools are spreading rapidly, and guardrails are still evolving.
Also read: xAI is quietly testing what it calls ‘human emulators,’ according to a former xAI engineer.
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