Ashley St. Clair, who gave birth to one of Elon Musk’s sons in 2024, sued Musk’s xAI in a New York court on Thursday, alleging that its chatbot Grok generated sexually explicit deepfake images of her at users’ request.
In the complaint, St. Clair, a writer, influencer, and political strategist, claims X users prompted Grok to manipulate images of her, including photos from when she was 14, into graphic sexual content. She alleges some images remained online for more than a week and that her premium X account was later terminated after she complained.
xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Grok first promised Ms. St. Clair that it would refrain from manufacturing more images unclothing her,” the complaint read. “Instead, Defendant retaliated against her, demonetizing her X account and generating multitudes more images of her,” the suit alleged.
St. Clair is also involved in a separate suit with Musk over the custody of their son, in which she sought sole custody.
xAI responded the same day with a separate lawsuit, arguing that St. Clair agreed to its terms of service, which requires any litigation to be heard in Texas. St. Clair is represented by attorney Carrie Goldberg, who specializes in cases involving abuse and has represented clients against Harvey Weinstein.
“xAI is not a reasonably safe product,” Goldberg said in a statement to Business Insider. “This harm flowed directly from deliberate design choices that enabled Grok to be used as a tool of harassment and humiliation. Companies should not be able to escape responsibility when the products they build predictably cause this kind of harm.”
The lawsuit followed international backlash against the Grok chatbot for its ability to undress images of real people and create sexualized images without their consent at users’ request.
Indonesia and Malaysia blocked access to Grok, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called explicit images generated by Grok “disgusting” and “shameful” in a meeting with the House of Commons.
On Wednesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta also announced that his office is investigating the “non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online” of “women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations.”
X said on the same day in a blog post that users would no longer be allowed to create AI photos of real people in sexualized or revealing clothing on the platform, adding that the restriction “applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”
As of Thursday morning, Business Insider reporter Henry Chandonnet found that it is still “surprisingly easy” to prompt Grok to create nude images of him by going to the app itself instead of using the Grok chatbot on X.
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