Teenagers sue Musk's xAI claiming image-generator made sexually explicit
images of them as minors
[March 20, 2026] By
TRAVIS LOLLER
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Three teenagers in Tennessee sued Elon Musk's
xAI this week, claiming the company's image-generation tools were used
to morph real photos of them into explicitly sexual images.
The high school students, who are seeking to proceed under pseudonyms,
filed the lawsuit in California, where xAI — Musk's artificial
intelligence company — has its headquarters. They are seeking
class-action status in order to represent what the lawsuit says are
thousands of victims like themselves who either are minors or were
minors when sexually explicit images of them were created.
According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe 1 was alerted anonymously in December
that someone was distributing sexually explicit images of her on a
social media website.
“At least five of these files, one video and four images, depicted her
actual face and body in settings with which she was familiar, but
morphed into sexually explicit poses," the lawsuit states. It claims the
person distributing the images knew Doe and used xAI's image generation
tools to turn real photos of her into sexually abusive ones. One of the
images was taken from a homecoming photo. Another was taken from a high
school yearbook.
The person distributing the images also created explicit images of at
least 18 other girls, two of whom are co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit. In
late December, local police arrested the perpetrator and confiscated his
phone. They found that he had uploaded the images to several platforms
where he traded them for sexually explicit images of other minors.
Other AI companies have prohibited their image-generators from producing
any sexually explicit content, even of adults. Musk saw this as a
business opportunity and promoted the ability of xAI's Grok chatbot to
create “spicy” content, the lawsuit claims. However, there is currently
no way to prevent the generation of explicit images of adults while
completely blocking the generation of images of children, the lawsuit
claims. It also claims that xAI knew Grok would be able to produce
sexually explicit images of children but released it anyway.
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Workers install lights on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters
in downtown San Francisco on July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger,
File)
 The lawsuit claims the person who
distributed images of the plaintiffs used an application that
licensed the xAI technology or “otherwise purchased its access to
Grok, and was used as a cut-out or middleman.”
XAI did not respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking
comment. But a Jan. 14 post about the controversy on the social
media platform X said: "We remain committed to making X a safe
platform for everyone and continue to have zero tolerance for any
forms of child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and
unwanted sexual content.
“We take action to remove high-priority violative content, including
Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and non-consensual nudity, taking
appropriate action against accounts that violate our X Rules. We
also report accounts seeking Child Sexual Exploitation materials to
law enforcement authorities as necessary.”
Meanwhile, the students in the lawsuit said they worry that the
images created of them will live forever on the internet. They fear
stalking because their real first names and the name of their school
are attached to the files. They worry that their friends and
classmates have seen the photos and videos, which appear to be real,
and they worry about who will see them in the future.
Jane Doe 1 said she has suffered from anxiety, depression, stress.
“She has difficulty eating and sleeping and suffers from recurring
nightmares," the lawsuit states. Jane Doe 2 "has begun
self-isolating and avoiding being on her school campus, and even
dreads attending her own graduation.” Jane Doe 3 suffers from
constant fear and anxiety that someone will see the AI-generated
images and recognize her face, according to the lawsuit.
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