The European Union has opened a wide-reaching investigation into Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot on X following global outrage over its generation of sexually explicit images, including of children.
The European Commission announced Monday it is investigating whether X properly assessed risks before deploying Grok’s image-generation capabilities in the EU. The probe follows outcry after the chatbot produced sexually explicit images of women and children in late 2024, prompting X to eventually restrict the tool from creating images of real people in revealing clothing. Senior EU official Henna Virkkunen stated: “Sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation.”
The investigation under the Digital Services Act could result in fines, though no timeline has been set. X was already fined approximately $140 million in December for violating the act, which Musk called “crazy.” California Attorney General Rob Bonta has also launched an investigation, while Grok remains banned in Indonesia and Malaysia. An unnamed EU official said the commission is “after changing the platform’s behavior” and confirmed multiple enforcement tools are available.