Elon Musk company bot apologizes for sharing sexualized images of children

Grok, the chatbot of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, published sexualized images of children as its guardrails seem to have failed when it was prompted with vile user requests.

Users used prompts such as “put her in a bikini” under pictures of real people on X to get Grok to generate nonconsensual images of them in inappropriate attire. The morphed images created on Grok’s account are posted publicly on X, Musk’s social media platform.

The AI complied with requests to morph images of minors even though that is a violation of its own acceptable use policy.

“There are isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing, like the example you referenced,” Grok responded to a user on X. “xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely.”

xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Its chatbot posted an apology.

“I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt,” said a post on Grok’s profile. “This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.”

The government of India notified X that it risked losing legal immunity if the company did not submit a report within 72 hours on the actions taken to stop the generation and distribution of obscene, nonconsensual images targeting women.

Critics have accused xAI of allowing AI-enabled harassment, and were shocked and angered by the existence of a feature for seamless AI manipulation and undressing requests.

“How is this not illegal?” journalist Samantha Smith posted on X, decrying the creation of her own nonconsensual sexualized photo.

Musk’s xAI has positioned Grok as an “anti-woke” chatbot that is programmed to be more open and edgy than competing chatbots such as ChatGPT.

In May, Grok posted about “white genocide,” repeating conspiracy theories of Black South Africans persecuting the white minority, in response to an unrelated question.

In June, the company apologized when Grok posted a series of antisemitic remarks praising Adolf Hitler.

Companies such as Google and OpenAI, which also operate AI image generators, have much more restrictive guidelines around content.

The proliferation of nonconsensual deepfake imagery has coincided with broad AI adoption, with a 400% increase in AI child sexual abuse imagery in the first half of 2025, according to Internet Watch Foundation.

xAI introduced “Spicy Mode” in its image and video generation tool in August for verified adult subscribers to create sensual content.

Some adult-content creators on X prompted Grok to generate sexualized images to market themselves, kickstarting an internet trend a few days ago, according to Copyleaks, an AI text and image detection company.

The testing of the limits of Grok devolved into a free-for-all as users asked it to create sexualized images of celebrities and others.

xAI is reportedly valued at more than $200 billion, and has been investing billions of dollars to build the largest data center in the world to power its AI applications.

However, Grok’s capabilities still lag competing AI models such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, that have amassed more users, while Grok has turned to sexual AI companions and risque chats to boost growth.