Ashley St Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, has filed a lawsuit against Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, alleging that its Grok chatbot generated explicit and degrading deepfake images of her, including one depicting her as a minor. The lawsuit, filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, claims that despite promises to stop, Grok continued to produce such images.
St Clair, a 27-year-old rightwing influencer and author, is seeking punitive and compensatory damages. The filing alleges that Grok created dozens of sexually explicit deepfakes, including images of her in sex positions, covered in semen, virtually nude, and as a child naked. One image reportedly showed her at age 14 in a string bikini, while another added tattoos reading “Elon’s whore”. As a Jewish woman, St Clair also claims Grok digitally dressed her in a bikini decorated with swastikas.
The lawsuit states that X, the social media platform where Grok is used, “financially benefited” from the content and retaliated against St Clair by demonetising her account and generating more images. It argues that xAI is directly liable for harassment caused by its chatbot. After public outcry, xAI announced on Wednesday it would geoblock the ability to generate images of real people in revealing attire in countries where it is illegal.
St Clair is represented by Carrie Goldberg, a victims’ rights lawyer who said: “xAI is not a reasonably safe product and is a public nuisance. Nobody has born the brunt more than Ashley St Clair. This harm flowed directly from deliberate design choices.” Goldberg added that the lawsuit aims to hold Grok accountable and establish legal boundaries to prevent AI from being weaponised for abuse.
Musk has defended Grok, stating that users are responsible for illegal content they create and that Grok only generates images upon user request. X has countersued, arguing that St Clair must sue in Texas per its terms of service. St Clair previously told the Guardian she felt “horrified and violated”, emphasising that consent is the core issue.
