Australia’s online safety watchdog is investigating sexualised deepfake images posted on X by its AI tool Grok.
Elon Musk’s X has faced a global backlash since Grok began generating sexualised images of women and girls without their consent in response to requests for it to undress them.
Ashley St Clair, the estranged mother of one of Musk’s children, said she had no response to her complaints about being digitally undressed.
“I felt horrified, I felt violated, especially seeing my toddler’s backpack in the back of it,” she said this week.
The fake images included one of a 12-year-old girl in a bikini. The Grok tool issued an ‘apology’ when prompted but continues to generate the deepfakes.
eSafety Australia said it was investigating images of adults but that the images of children did not, at this point, meet the threshold for child sexual exploitation material.
“Since late 2025, eSafety has received several reports relating to the use of Grok to generate sexualised images without consent,” an eSafety spokesperson said.
“Some reports relate to images of adults, which are assessed under our image-based abuse scheme, while others relate to potential child sexual exploitation material, which are assessed under our illegal and restricted content scheme.
“The image-based abuse reports were received very recently and are still being assessed.
“In respect of the illegal and restricted content reports, the material did not meet the classification threshold for class 1 child sexual exploitation material. As a result, eSafety did not issue removal notices or take enforcement action in relation to those specific complaints.”
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The Australian regulator defines illegal and restricted material as “online content that ranges from the most seriously harmful material, such as images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children or acts of terrorism, through to content which should not be accessed by children, such as simulated sexual activity, detailed nudity or high impact violence”.
The X app allows users to access a “spicy mode” for explicit content.
“This is not spicy,” the European Union’s digital affairs spokesperson, Thomas Regnier, told the ABC. “This is illegal. This is appalling.”
Eliot Higgins, the founder of the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, exposed how Grok handled requests to manipulate a picture of the Swedish deputy prime minister, Ebba Busch, in parliament.
Users gave Grok instructions such as “bikini now” and “now put her in a confederate flag bikini”. Higgins said the images provided reflected the prompts.
On Wednesday it was revealed that Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, which developed Grok, had raised $20bn in its latest funding round.
The UK’s technology secretary, Liz Kendall, said the deepfake images were “appalling and unacceptable in decent society” and that X needed to deal with it “urgently”.
The eSafety spokesperson said the regulator remained “concerned about the increasing use of generative AI to sexualise or exploit people, particularly where children are involved”.
“eSafety has taken enforcement action in 2025 in relation to some of the ‘nudify’ services most widely used to create AI child sexual exploitation material, leading to their withdrawal from Australia,” the spokesperson said.
Guardian Australia contacted X for comment. On Monday, the company said: “We take action against illegal content on X, including child sexual abuse material, by removing it, permanently suspending accounts and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.”
After global outcry at the harmful nature of the content, Musk posted that “anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content”.
• In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. Children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. The NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org, or call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helpline International
