Elon Musk faces lawsuit from mother of his child over ‘humiliating’ Grok deepfake images

Ashley St. Clair, the mother of Elon Musk’s son, has filed a lawsuit against his AI company, claiming the company’s Grok chatbot allowed users to generate sexually exploitive deepfake images of her

The mother of one of Elon Musk’s children is taking legal action against his AI firm after sexually explicit deepfake images of her were allegedly created.

Ashley St. Clair, 27, claims the company’s Grok chatbot enabled users to produce sexually exploitative deepfake images of her that have left her feeling humiliated and emotionally distressed.

The writer and political strategist has outlined allegations in a lawsuit lodged on Thursday in New York City against xAI, stating that the images included a photo of her fully clothed at age 14 that was doctored to show her in a bikini, plus others depicting her as an adult in sexualised poses and wearing a bikini adorned with swastikas.

St. Clair is Jewish. Grok operates on Musk’s social media platform X, reports the Mirror.

Legal representatives for xAI did not respond immediately to emails requesting comment on Friday, The Associated Press reports.

On Wednesday, after worldwide condemnation over sexualised images of women and children, X declared that Grok would no longer be capable of editing photographs to show real people in revealing attire, in jurisdictions where such content is prohibited.

When questioned about the lawsuit and its claims, xAI responded solely with “Legacy Media Lies” in an email to The Associated Press.

St. Clair stated she flagged the deepfakes to X after they started surfacing last year and requested their removal.

She said the platform initially responded that the images didn’t breach its policies, before pledging not to permit images of her to be used or modified without her permission. St. Clair claimed the social media platform then hit back at her by stripping away her premium X subscription and blue tick verification, blocking her ability to monetise her account despite its 1 million followers, whilst continuing to permit degrading doctored images of her to circulate.

“I have suffered and continue to suffer serious pain and mental distress as a result of xAI’s role in creating and distributing these digitally altered images of me,” she stated in documentation accompanying the legal action. “I am humiliated and feel like this nightmare will never stop so long as Grok continues to generate these images of me.”

St. Clair is the mother of Musk’s 16-month-old son, Romulus. She resides in New York City, where she lodged the lawsuit in state Supreme Court.

She is pursuing an undetermined sum in damages for alleged infliction of emotional distress amongst other claims, alongside court injunctions immediately preventing xAI from permitting further deepfakes of her.

Later on Thursday, legal representatives for xAI moved the case to federal court in Manhattan, requesting a judge oversee proceedings there. That same day, xAI also launched a counter-lawsuit against St. Clair in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, claiming she breached the terms of her xAI user agreement which mandates legal disputes against the company must be filed in federal court in Texas.

The firm is pursuing an undisclosed financial judgement against her. X is situated in Texas, where Musk has a residence and his electric car company Tesla has its headquarters in Austin.

Carrie Goldberg, St. Clair’s solicitor, described the countersuit as a “jolting” move that she had never witnessed from a defendant before. “Ms. St. Clair will be vigorously defending her forum in New York,” Goldberg stated.

“But frankly, any jurisdiction will recognise the gravamen of Ms. St. Clair’s claims – that by manufacturing nonconsensual sexually explicit images of girls and women, xAI is a public nuisance and a not reasonably safe product.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, X announced it was introducing additional safeguards on Grok, including restricting image creation and editing to paid accounts, which it said would enhance accountability. It declared it had zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation, nonconsensual nudity and unwanted sexual content, and it would promptly remove such content and report accounts involved in child sex abuse materials to law enforcement.

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