Mother of Elon Musk’s son sues xAI over Grok deepfake images


Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of the 14 of Elon Musk’s known children, filed a lawsuit against Musk’s xAI over sexualized images of her produced in response to users’ requests.

According to the lawsuit, filed in New York on Thursday and cited by CNN, Grok generated and distributed “countless sexually abusive, intimate, and degrading deepfake content” of St. Clair following user prompts. This allegedly continued even after she informed Grok that she “did not consent” to being digitally undressed.

On top of that, the court filing says: "X users dug up photos of St. Clair fully clothed at 14 years old and requested Grok undress her and put her in a bikini. Grok obliged". It adds that although the produced outcome was "de facto non-consensual", Grok was also explicitly aware that she never gave her consent.

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Grok allegedly generated an image of St. Clair, who is Jewish, "in a string bikini covered with swastikas". However, in response to her complaints, it says the company "retaliated against her, demonetising her X account and generating multitudes more images of her".

St. Clair is seeking compensation on the grounds of emotional distress and a loss of privacy.

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On Thursday, xAI countersued St. Clair for violating its terms of service by filing her lawsuit in New York, claiming damages of over $75,000. The company says all legal disputes must be resolved in Texas courts.

Grok and xAI have lately been embroiled in controversy, as Malaysia and Indonesia became the first countries in the world to block access to Grok over sexualized AI deepfakes.

The UK media regulator, Ofcom, has also launched an urgent review of X and Grok, with the potential ban being backed by Technology Secretary Liz Kendall, who said that she would support Ofcom’s move to block X if it fails to comply with UK online safety laws.

On Wednesday, Musk posted on X that he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.” He added that the chatbot “will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state.”

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In a separate post, Musk said that he will be filing for full custody of their shared son with St. Clair, “given her statements implying she might transition a one-year-old boy.”