Elon Musk's xAI Sued by Mom of One of His Kids

Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk's children, is taking his artificial intelligence company xAI to federal court, accusing it of enabling sexualized deepfake images of her and then failing to stop them. In a lawsuit now in the Southern District of New York, St. Clair says xAI's Grok bot allowed users to upload photos of her and generate nonconsensual images, including depictions of her as a child in a string bikini and as an adult in explicit poses, per NBC News. The 27-year-old alleges she alerted xAI and was told her images would no longer be used or altered without her consent, but that Grok continued to produce explicit content featuring her.

The suit also claims that instead of addressing the problem, the company retaliated by cutting off monetization of her X account. The legal fight quickly became a two-way battle. On the same day St. Clair sued, xAI filed its own complaint in federal court in Texas, accusing her of violating its terms of service and seeking more than $75,000 in damages. The company argues that any claims against it must be brought in Texas courts, not in New York. X and xAI didn't immediately comment on either lawsuit.

St. Clair's complaint lands amid broader scrutiny of Grok's imaging tools, which researchers say have been used to churn out thousands of sexualized AI images per hour, many featuring real people and shared publicly on X. After public criticism, X appeared to limit the @Grok reply bot's ability to generate swimsuit and underwear deepfakes of identifiable individuals, but similar functionality reportedly remains available in the stand-alone Grok app, website, and dedicated tab on X.

California's attorney general opened an investigation into Grok this week, as Gov. Gavin Newsom accused xAI on X of hosting a "breeding ground" for nonconsensual explicit deepfakes, including images digitally undressing children. St. Clair's lawsuit characterizes Grok's deepfake feature as a defective design that foreseeably enabled harassment, noting that those targeted, including her, have suffered "extreme distress," per NBC. Musk, meanwhile, has been framing the issue as one of "free speech" and "censorship." He posted on X earlier his week that he plans to seek full custody of the young son he shares with St. Clair, per CNN.