Deepfake images: Mother of Elon Musk’s child sues xAI

xAI, the parent company of X and the AI tool Grok, has faced a lot of global scrutiny because of many safety and privacy concerns.

The company has been investigated and faced backlash for Grok’s ability to create sexually explicit fake images of real people – mostly women and minors – without consent.

Last week, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, conservative influencer and author Ashley St Clair, filed a lawsuit against xAI because of sexually explicit deepfake pictures of her that appeared on X and were created using Grok.

The lawsuit in detail

According to the lawsuit, X users allegedly used pictures from Ms St Clair’s social media of when she was a teenager and asked Grok to alter them.

Ms St Clair, who is Jewish, was depicted wearing a string bikini covered in swastikas.

The court filing states that the creation of the images was “non-consensual”, and that the developers of Grok knew that no consent was given.

Ms St Clair’s lawyer Carrie Goldberg said: “We intend to hold Grok accountable and to help establish clear legal boundaries for the entire public’s benefit to prevent AI from being weaponised for abuse. By manufacturing nonconsensual sexually explicit images of girls and women, xAI is a public nuisance and a not reasonably safe product.”

xAI retaliates

In response, xAI filed a countersuit.

They claim that by filing her lawsuit in New York, Ms St Clair violated their terms of service, as those clearly state that any legal disputes must be filed and addressed in Texas.

Moreover, in retaliation the company has “demonetised her X account and generated multitudes more images of her”.

Ms Goldberg responded: “I have never heard of any defendant suing somebody for notifying them of their intention to use the legal system. And their mistreatment of her online is mimicked in their legal strategy.”

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xAI and Grok face continued global scrutiny

2026 has not been a good year so far for xAI and Grok, with the company and its AI tool hit with investigation after investigation and complaint after complaint.

Users, regulators and politicians have all voiced concerns about Grok and what it is being used for while accusing the site of not doing enough to stop the production of illegal content.

In response, the company announced a change to the tool’s accessibility and restricted the use of that particular editing function to paid subscribers.

xAI then went a step further and unveiled a plan to ‘geoblock’ the ability of users to edit pictures of real people to make it look like they are wearing revealing clothing in countries where this type of imagery is illegal.

They also stated that they would put similar geo-blocking measures in place for the Grok app, which is separate to the X app.

But a report in The Guardian newspaper claimed it was still possible to create sexually explicit deepfakes “without any sign of it being monitored” and to post those on X.

Various countries putting measures in place

The platform has also come under fire for the creation of antisemitic content, for praising Adolf Hitler, and for generally creating content that is insulting, offensive or inaccurate.

This has sparked worldwide outrage, and multiple investigations have been launched and measures put in place to fight the issue.

Turkey, for example, has banned Grok because content has been created that insulted president Tayyip Erdogan, while Malaysia and Indonesia have also made the decision to temporarily block access.

India, meanwhile, attempted to tackle the issue by giving the company a 72-hour deadline to remove all the offensive content and put appropriate safety measures in place.

Even though the company reportedly made an attempt to follow this demand, the government was not fully satisfied and demanded even stricter measures for safety and privacy.

In California, the attorney general has announced an investigation into the increase of sexual deepfakes and in France, the government has reported Grok’s content to prosecutors as they claim for it to be illegal and violate the EU’s digital services act.

The UK also has launched an investigation. Independent regulator Ofcomm is looking into whether or not X has violated the Online Safety Act.

According to the UK government, X could potentially face enormous fines or even get banned depending on its outcome.

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