Elon Lets Grok Cook… Regulators Show Up With the Fire Extinguisher

“Relax, it’s just AI images. Nobody’s getting hurt.” -Everyone until they see their significant other trending on Twitter wearing a string bikini

Well, that didn’t take long…

What might go down as the wildest, weirdest micro-era of X is officially over… although Elon Musk did his best to keep it on life support for as long as humanly possible (and possibly a little longer).

If you’ve spent even five minutes on X lately (and if you haven’t, congrats on your mental health), you’ve probably seen the now-infamous prompt: “Grok, edit this photo to put [real person] in a bikini.” It became so common it basically turned into a meme. A deeply cursed meme… but a meme nonetheless (the internet has a talent for this).

This week, California finally jumped into the group chat (and let’s just say they don’t think it’s funny).

Attorney General Rob Bonta announced his office is investigating xAI, citing what he described as mass production of nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfake images. In other words, this wasn’t a few weirdos… this was bad behavior going fully industrial (OSHA would not approve).

According to California officials, Grok-generated images of women (and in some cases minors) flooded the platform, often hyper-realistic, degrading, and explicitly nonconsensual. Governor Gavin Newsom went as far as calling the situation a “breeding ground for predators” and urging immediate accountability.

Naturally, Elon’s first response was jokes. Emojis. Posting through it. Classic Elon.

Then the regulators showed up… and the party was over.

(Source: New York Times)

By Wednesday night, xAI announced it was pulling the plug on Grok’s ability to generate or edit sexualized images of real people directly on X. Per the platform’s “safety” account (which abruptly remembered it had a job), Grok will no longer allow edits that put real people into revealing clothing like bikinis… for anyone, including paid subscribers.

Yes, technically you can still do some of this on Grok’s standalone site. But let’s call this what it is: damage control.

The move came as pressure mounted globally. Investigations are already underway in Europe, the U.K., India, and Australia. Malaysia and Indonesia have outright banned Grok. And in the U.S., senators are pushing Apple and Google to yank Grok and X from their app stores until stronger protections are in place.

Musk, for his part, insists he’s unaware of any “naked underage images” generated by Grok, saying there were “literally zero.” Reuters couldn’t independently verify that… and xAI declined to answer questions directly, responding instead with its now-standard PR line: “Legacy Media Lies.” Cool. Very reassuring.

Obviously, the bigger issue here isn’t politics or censorship…  it’s what happens when powerful generative tools are dropped into the wild with the assumption that users will behave. History suggests… they won’t.

Grok was marketed as the no-rules AI. What followed was a live demonstration of how fast things go sideways without them.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Apple and Google as mentioned in the article.