This story was originally reported by Mariel Padilla by The 19thand republished through Rewire News Group’s partnership with The 19th News Network.
Social media platform
Elon Musk, the owner of announced a new feature with a post on Christmas Eve encouraged users to edit images and videos with Grok, the app’s chatbot. A few weeks later, as the new year began, many women online noticed something disturbing: a flood of AI-generated sexualized images of them on the social media platform X. Users on
Grok does not show people naked, but follows the directions to show women wearing thongs and dental floss. Some
Musk seemed to make light of the situation when he posted laughing emojis in response to AI edits of famous people, including himself, in bikinis. But Musk might soon have to take the problem more seriously — under federal law.
In May 2025, President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan agreement Take It Down promotionthat criminalizes the distribution of non-consensual intimate images, including AI-generated deepfakes and so-called “revenge porn.” Platforms have until May 2026 to implement a request-and-remove system that will allow victims to have their photos removed within 48 hours.
On Saturday, Musk warned X users in a post: “Anyone who uses Grok to create illegal content will face the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”
The question is: which of these Grok-generated images are considered illegal?
The law defines “intimate visual display” as any form of exposed female genitalia, pubic area, anus or nipples.
Riana Pfefferkorn, a policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, said she thinks many of these skimpy bikini photos could be considered illegal. She urged people to submit takedown requests because the law encourages media companies to remove questionable content to avoid fines from the Federal Trade Commission.
Pfefferkorn said more public pressure may be needed to end this latest Grok feature. If X was serious about not allowing non-consensual images, Pfefferkorn said, the company would have taken the tool offline weeks ago.
“There was no reason why they couldn’t just disable that feature,” Pfefferkorn said. “Any time another company has something that goes terribly wrong, they can just stop it and then try to lick their wounds and figure out what happened. But Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, and he has repeatedly acted as if he was above the law and gotten away with it.”
It’s not clear how many of these photos were circulated in what Reuters called a “mass digital undressing,” but the news outlet’s review of public requests to Grok found at least 102 attempts in a 10-minute period.
The flood of near-nude photos – mainly of young women and in some cases children – sparked international outrage: ministers in France reported X to regulators; The British communications regulator has contacted the media company; and India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wrote a condemnatory letter.
By allowing these images,
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