Tracking Regulator Responses to the Grok 'Undressing' Controversy

This piece was last updated on January 7.

On January 3, Reuters reported Elon Musk’s AI chatbot was generating a “flood of nearly nude images of real people” in response to user prompts, including “sexualized images of women and minors,” and posting them to the social media platform X. “In addition to the sexual imagery of underage girls,” reported Futurism, “the women depicted in Grok-generated nonconsensual porn range from some who appear to be private citizens to a slew of celebrities, from famous actresses to the First Lady of the United States.”

Regulators around the world are responding by opening inquiries, demanding takedowns, and threatening legal action. Tech Policy Press is tracking such responses. If you see a relevant statement or action from a regulator, let us know.

European Commission

• As reported by Euronews, the European Commission said it was “very seriously looking into” the situation. “This is not 'spicy'. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is disgusting. This has no place in Europe,” a Commission spokesperson said.
• "X is fully aware that we apply the Digital Services Act very rigorously and we encourage all companies to comply with it," the spokesperson said.

United Kingdom

• As reported by Reuters, “Ofcom demanded on Monday that X explain how Grok was able to produce undressed images of people and sexualized images of children, and whether it was failing in its legal duty to protect users.”
• In a statement posted on X, Ofcom said “We have made urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK. Based on their response we will undertake a swift assessment to determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation.”

France

• According to Politico, a Paris prosecutors’ office confirmed that “French authorities will investigate the proliferation of sexually explicit deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence platform Grok on X” following complaints from French lawmakers.

India

• As the Times of India reported, on January 3, India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeITY) issued a notice to the chief compliance officer of X Corp. regarding its “failure to observe statutory due diligence obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.”
• MeITY is seeking “an Action Taken Report towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation, publication, transmission, sharing or uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and sexually explicit content through the misuse of Al-based services like 'Grok' and xAl's other services.”

Malaysia

• As reported by Rest of World, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission issued a statement indicating “serious concern of public complaints about the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on the X platform, specifically the digital manipulation of images of women and minors to produce indecent, grossly offensive, or otherwise harmful content.”
• The Commission statement “stresses that creating or transmitting such harmful content constitutes an offence under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA), which among others prohibits misuse of network or application services to transmit grossly offensive, obscene or indecent content. MCMC will initiate investigations on X users alleged to have violated CMA.”

Brazil

• As reported by Mlex, Brazilian federal deputy Erika Hilton has pushed for the suspension of Grok in Brazil for generating and distributing erotic images, including child sexual abuse material, without consent.
• “I am reporting the artificial intelligence 'Grok' and the social network X to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office and the National Data Protection Authority,” she wrote on X on Monday, adding that X must be disabled throughout the national territory until everything is properly investigated.

United States

• While there has as yet been no official response by any US regulatory agency, Axios reports that multiple lawmakers have raised concerns, and a Department of Justice official told reporters that it “takes AI-generated child sex abuse material extremely seriously and will aggressively prosecute any producer or possessor of CSAM." While apparently not mentioning Grok or xAI specifically, a DOJ spokesperson told Axios that "We continue to explore ways to optimize enforcement in this space to protect children and hold accountable individuals who exploit technology to harm our most vulnerable."

Australia

• Australia’s online safety watchdog is investigating sexualised deepfake images generated by Grok. eSafety Australia told the Guardian it has received multiple reports since late 2025 about non-consensual sexualised images, mostly involving adults, with some cases reviewed for potential child exploitation but not meeting the legal threshold so far. The adult image reports are recent and still under assessment. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant said the agency will use its regulatory powers to investigate and take action if needed.