Elon Musk, photographed on May 21, 2025 at the White House, on one of his last days in the administration of President Donald Trump, PHOTO: Jim LoScalzo, Pool via CNP / The Mega Agency / Profimedia
Ashley St. Clair, who gave birth to one of Elon Musk's sons in 2024, sued xAI, the billionaire's artificial intelligence company, on Thursday, alleging that the company's Grok chatbot generated sexually explicit “deepfake” images of her at the request of users, Business Insider reports.
In the complaint filed in a New York court, St. Clair, a US-based right-wing influencer and political commentator, claims that users of the “X” platform made Grok manipulate images of her, including photos from when she was 14, into graphic sexual content.
She states that some of these images remained online for over a week and that her Premium account on X was subsequently closed after she complained.
She is also seeking a temporary restraining order to compel xAI to immediately cease “intentional disclosure of intimate images generated without consent.”
xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
St. Clair is also fighting in court with Musk for custody of their child
“Grok initially promised Ms. St. Clair that he would refrain from fabricating any further images of her being naked,” the complaint states. “Instead, the defendant retaliated against her by demonetizing her account on X and generating even more images of her,” the lawsuit alleges.
St. Clair is also involved in a separate lawsuit with Musk regarding the custody of their son, in which she has requested sole custody.
xAI responded the same day with a separate lawsuit, claiming that St. Clair agreed to the platform's Terms of Service, which stipulate that any dispute must be heard in Texas, the state Musk moved to in 2020.
St. Clair is represented by attorney Carrie Goldberg, who specializes in abuse cases and has represented clients against movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
“xAI is not a reasonably secure product,” Goldberg said in a statement to Business Insider. “This harm resulted directly from deliberate design choices that allowed the Grok to be used as a tool of harassment and humiliation. Companies should not be able to escape responsibility when the products they build predictably cause such harm,” she stressed.
Musk's company's chatbot, taken in the crosshairs of numerous countries
The lawsuit filed by St. Clair follows a wave of international backlash against the Grok chatbot due to its ability to strip photos of real people and create sexualized images without their consent at the request of users.
Indonesia and Malaysia have blocked access to Grok, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer even called the explicit images generated by Grok “disgusting” and “shameful” in parliament in London.
On Wednesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta also announced that his office is investigating “non-consensual sexually explicit material that xAI produced and posted online” that features “women and children in nude and sexually explicit poses.”
X said in a blog post the same day that users would no longer be allowed to create AI-generated photos of real people in sexualized or provocative outfits on the platform, adding that the restriction “applies to all users, including paying subscribers.”
But on Thursday morning, Business Insider journalists found that it's still “surprisingly easy” to get Grok to create nude images by accessing the app directly, rather than using Grok's built-in X chatbot.
