Lawmakers call on app stores to remove Grok, X over sexualized deepfakes
Three U.S. senators are asking Google and Apple to remove Elon Musk’s Grok and X apps from their app stores in the wake of the AI tool being used to create sexualized images of real people, including children, without their consent.
The senators’ Friday outreach comes after a week during which Musk has made light of Grok’s actions by reacting to news of the image generation with a laugh cry emoji. Late Thursday, X tweaked Grok by limiting use of the image generation feature to premium subscribers, a move which did little to quell the growing controversy over Grok’s behavior.
Both X and Grok are units of Musk’s xAI company.
“All X’s changes do is make some of its users pay for the privilege of producing horrific images on the X app, while Musk profits from the abuse of children,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said in a statement Friday.
Grok’s actions violate the app stores’ terms of service, Wyden and Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) said in their joint letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“X’s generation of these harmful and likely illegal depictions of women and children has shown complete disregard for your stores’ distribution terms,” the letter says. “Apple and Google must remove these apps from the app stores until X’s policy violations are addressed.”
The images Grok has produced in recent days include depictions of women being sexually abused, tortured and killed, the letter said.
In other cases, the senators told Pinchai and Cook, Grok has created sexualized images of children. They pointed to a Grok app archive surfaced by researchers which the senators said contains nearly 100 images of potential child sexual abuse materials generated since August.
“Turning a blind eye to X’s egregious behavior would make a mockery of your moderation practices,” the letter says. “Indeed, not taking action would undermine your claims in public and in court that your app stores offer a safer user experience than letting users download apps directly to their phones.”
Google and Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
European regulators have said they are seriously weighing action against X over Grok, but American authorities have been silent to date.
Suzanne Smalley
is a reporter covering privacy, disinformation and cybersecurity policy for The Record. She was previously a cybersecurity reporter at CyberScoop and Reuters. Earlier in her career Suzanne covered the Boston Police Department for the Boston Globe and two presidential campaign cycles for Newsweek. She lives in Washington with her husband and three children.