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By Marni Rose McFall
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Elon Musk’s Grok AI is facing an official investigation in the United Kingdom over the creation of sexualized images of children.
Last week, Grok apologized about the creation of sexual images of young girls, while sexualized images of women, created without their consent, flooded the platform.
Now, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), a regulator and competition authority for the communications industries in the United Kingdom, has launched an official investigation.
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Newsweek has contacted X for comment outside of regular working hours via email.
Why It Matters
Women online had already sounded the alarm about Grok and its ability to create images of this nature. As the issue becomes more and more widespread, high-profile women, including Princess Kate and conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, have been targeted.
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St. Clair said in an X post that a photo of her at the age of 14 was altered to show her removing clothes, and said that she had witnessed manipulated images of children.
And this issue is not isolated, and fits into a broader picture of concern about AI technologies, the impact they are having on women and girls, and that these technologies could be ushering in a new era of misogyny.
Some 25 percent of women have experienced harassment enabled by technology, including AI-generated deepfake pornography, according to a 2025 survey from the National Organization for Women (NOW) and Incogni.
AI-generated images are becoming prolific online, and the technology behind them is becoming more sophisticated.
This technology is emerging into a world where concerns about image-based abuse were already significant, with a March 2025 study from SWGfL, a charity dedicated to creating safe and secure use of technology, estimating that more than 40 million women globally are victims of Non-Consensual Intimate Image (NCII) abuse.
What To Know
In a statement shared to X on January 5, viewed 2.9 million times, Ofcom said that it was aware of a Grok feature that "produces images of people and sexualised images of children."
Ofcom said that it has made "urgent" contact with X and xAI in order to understand the steps they have taken to "comply with the legal duties and to protect users in the UK."
That statement continued, noting that based on the response it receives, it will do an assessment to determine whether there are "compliance issues" that warrant investigation.
Musk addressed the creation of these images in a post on X, writing, "Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content," in response to a social media user who had written on X, "Some people are saying Grok is creating inappropriate images.
"But that’s like blaming a pen for writing something bad. A pen doesn’t decide what gets written. The person holding it does. Grok works the same way. What you get depends a lot on what you put in. Think about it!"
Musk’s reply was a change of tack following a global outcry. He had originally expressed amusement at the trend, sharing laughing emojis in response to a picture of a toaster wearing a bikini.
Despite Musk’s statement, sexualized images created without consent are continuing to circulate on the platform. The top reply to Ofcom’s statement is an image of the Ofcom logo, edited by Grok to be wearing a bikini.
What People Are Saying
Ofcom, in a statement shared to X: "We have 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. Based on their response we will undertake a swift assessment to determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation."
Ashley St. Clair, the conservative influencer, in a post on X viewed 140,000 times: "When Grok went full MechaHitler, the chatbot was paused to stop the content. When Grok is producing explicit images of children and women, xAI has decided to keep the content up + overwhelm law enforcement with cases they will never solve with foreign bots and take resources from other victims. This issue could be solved very quickly. It is not, and the burden is being placed on victims."
What Happens Next?
Whether an investigation will be launched remains to be seen.
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