EU decries Musk’s Grok for illegal sexualised images of kids

The European Union is taking a “very serious” look at Elon Musk’s Grok after the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot generated sexualised images of people including minors on the social media platform X.

“We are aware of the fact that X or Grok is now offering a ‘Spicy Mode’ showing explicit sexual content with some output generated with childlike images,” commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said at a press conference, referring to a setting that Grok debuted last year to generate suggestive material. “This is not spicy. This is illegal.”

Users of X have been prompting Grok to digitally remove clothing from photos - often of women - so the subjects appeared to be wearing only underwear or bikinis. The proliferation of these images on a popular social media platform has alarmed regulators and online safety advocates worldwide, with Indian, British and French officials among those decrying the posts.

XAI, which runs X and Grok, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Musk said in a post on X Sunday that the platform takes action against illegal material by removing it, permanently suspending accounts and working with officials as necessary. “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” he said in the post.

While most mainstream AI models prohibit sexual images and videos, xAI has positioned Grok as more permissive. The system allows depictions of partial adult nudity and sexually suggestive imagery, even while it bans explicit pornography involving real people’s likenesses and sexual content involving minors. In some countries including the US and UK, it’s illegal to publish AI-generated intimate deepfakes of people without their consent. Drawing and enforcing these distinctions represents a critical test of the safety systems embedded in image-generating AI tools.

The apparent failure by xAI to implement effective guardrails has drawn condemnation from regulators around the world.

“If AI platforms choose to allow the generation of erotic content, robust, effective, and independently verifiable safeguards must be implemented in advance,” Dutch lawmaker Jeroen Lenaers, who led the European Parliament’s move last year to criminalise AI-generated child abuse images, said in a statement Tuesday.

Removing posts after the fact, as Grok did, is “not a solution at all, as the harm to victims has already been inflicted and cannot be undone,” Lenaers added.

If AI platforms choose to allow the generation of erotic content, robust, effective, and independently verifiable safeguards must be implemented in advance. Relying on the removal of child sexual abuse material after its creation is not a solution at all, as the harm to victims has already been inflicted and cannot be undone. AI platforms should take far greater responsibility for safeguarding children online, yet it seems increasingly evident that commercial interests continue to outweigh the online protection of children.”

UK media regulator Ofcom said that it was aware of “serious concerns” about Grok’s features and had made “urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK.”

The French government accused Grok of generating “clearly illegal” sexual content on X without people’s consent and flagged the matter as potentially violating the EU’s Digital Services Act. The regulation requires large platforms to mitigate the risk of illegal content spreading.

India’s IT ministry demanded a comprehensive review of Grok’s safety features, and Malaysian authorities said they’re investigating the matter after complaints about Grok’s “indecent” output.

Musk’s X was already the subject of an investigation under the EU’s DSA and in December was fined €120 million ($140 million) for compliance failures - the first ever penalty under the controversial content moderation law. The bloc’s focus on American tech firms such as X has drawn intense criticism from US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has argued that European regulators are censoring free speech.

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