MW Elon Musk's xAI is facing a growing number of lawsuits over AI-generated deepfakes

By William Gavin

A class-action lawsuit filed on Monday by three plaintiffs based in Tennessee claims xAI facilitated the creation of child pornography and distributed it

The allegations center around xAI's Grok chatbot and Grok Imagine, an image and video generation tool.

Elon Musk's xAI is facing another lawsuit over its artificial-intelligence technology, which a group of plaintiffs based in Tennessee allege was used to generate sexually explicit images of minors.

According to a class-action complaint filed on Monday in federal court in San Jose, Calif., xAI facilitated the creation of child pornography and distributed it. The three anonymous plaintiffs were all minors at the time of the alleged incidents and say they are victims of xAI's "knowing production, possession and distribution of AI-generated child sexual-abuse material," according to the complaint.

The allegations center around xAI's Grok chatbot and Grok Imagine, an image- and video-generation tool. Each of the plaintiffs say AI was used to edit or create sexually explicit images of them, which caused them "severe emotional distress," according to the complaint. Criminal investigations against the one individual who allegedly used Grok's AI chatbot to create the images were opened in the incidents involving the plaintiffs, the complaint said.

Instead of installing guardrails, "xAI - and its founder Elon Musk - saw a business opportunity: an opportunity to profit off the sexual predation of real people, including children," the complaint says. Musk is not a named defendant in the lawsuit filed on Monday. XAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new lawsuit comes after xAI sparked controversy by allowing users to easily edit images posted on the social-media website X.

The "put-her-in-a-bikini trend," where users ask Grok to generate an image featuring someone or something wearing a bikini, began in early December 2025 before picking up steam in the weeks that followed, according to the Guardian. It peaked on Jan. 2, when almost 200,000 requests were input, the Guardian reported, citing data from a digital-intelligence firm.

According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Grok produced an estimated 3 million sexualized images over an 11-day period after Musk announced that X users could use the chatbot to edit images posted on X with a single click. Some 23,000 images appeared to depict children, the group said in a Jan. 22 report.

"I not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero," Musk posted on X on Jan. 14. "When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state."

X, which is owned by xAI, said in a Jan. 3 statement that it would take action against any illegal content on the platform and permanently suspend any accounts associated with it. XAI also limited image generation to paid accounts on X and said it had implemented additional safeguards.

The scandal drew investigations and scrutiny from regulators around the world, including the European Commission and California's attorney general. Officials in Japan, Britain, Spain and Australia also launched probes into xAI.

On Jan. 23, an anonymous plaintiff filed a class-action complaint against xAI, writing that "non-consensual revealing and sexual deepfakes" generated by Grok "can never be erased." Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk's children, also sued xAI over deepfake images created by Grok. In a legal filing, xAI said St. Clair's lawsuit had numerous defects.

"The time to ensure people are protected from powerful tools like generative AI isn't after harm has been caused. You shouldn't wait for a car crash to put up guardrails," Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said in a Jan. 26 statement after he and other state attorneys general demanded xAI take additional action.

AI-generated videos of child sexual abuse aren't a problem isolated to xAI. The nonprofit International Watch Foundation said it discovered 3,440 AI videos of child sexual abuse in 2025, up from just 13 in 2024, and investigated 312,030 reports of confirmed child pornography.

In February, xAI was acquired by Musk's SpaceX, which analysts estimate is worth $1.25 trillion. The company aims to go public this year, seeking a stock-market valuation as high as $1.75 trillion.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Monday sued xAI on 13 counts, including distribution of child pornography and negligence. They also want to prevent xAI from engaging in the "illegal conduct," the complaint says.

Read: You can invest in SpaceX before its IPO - but should you?

-William Gavin

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March 16, 2026 16:39 ET (20:39 GMT)

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