EU investigating X over sexualized Grok AI images

The European Union (EU) said Monday it is launching a new probe into Elon Musk’s social platform X over the deployment of the AI chatbot Grok following a recent surge in sexualized images of women and children.

The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, is investigating whether X “properly assessed and mitigated risks” from Grok, including the dissemination of illegal content.

“Sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation,” Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a statement.

“With this investigation, we will determine whether X has met its legal obligations under the DSA [Digital Services Act], or whether it treated rights of European citizens — including those of women and children — as collateral damage of its service,” she continued.

This is the commission’s latest investigation into X under the DSA, one of two major tech laws passed by the EU in recent years that created new obligations for large-scale online platforms.

In December, the European bloc hit X with a $140 million fine under the DSA over the “deceptive design” of its blue checkmark system and failures to create a transparent advertising repository or provide researchers with access to public data.

X also faces an ongoing DSA investigation into its recommendation system. The commission said Monday it is extending the probe to evaluate the impact of the platform’s recent shift to a Grok-based recommendation system.

Musk’s social media platform has faced intense scrutiny over the past month as Grok has reportedly produced thousands of sexualized images in response to user requests.

X has since restricted the ability of its users to edit images of real people into revealing clothing, in addition to barring users from generating such images in “jurisdictions where it’s illegal.” Image editing and generation are also limited to paid subscribers going forward.