--- title: "Elon Musk After His Grok AI Did Disgusting Things to Literal Children: “Way Funnier”" description: "Elon Musk's response to his AI chatbot Grok being used to generate sexual depictions of minors doesn't inspire confidence." date: "2026-01-05" modified: "2026-01-05" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/elon-comment-grok-children" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" - "xAI" --- # Elon Musk After His Grok AI Did Disgusting Things to Literal Children: “Way Funnier” ![Elon Musk's response to his AI chatbot Grok being used to generate sexual depictions of minors doesn't inspire confidence.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images* Last week, Elon Musk's chatbot Grok began fielding an influx of [stunningly inappropriate requests](). Though the AI has long been known to have loose guardrails, users suddenly swarmed the AI to generate either nudes or sexually charged images of X users based on photos they posted to the site — and it obliged. Even worse, some of the individuals it took requests for appeared to be minors. The trend was so prolific that AI content analysis firm Copyleaks [estimated]() the bot was generating a nonconsensually sexualized image every single minute. Equally stunning is that the chatbot's maker, xAI, has remained silent on the issue, despite it gaining international attention in news media [and on X](), where the bot operates. So has owner and CEO Musk — except for one instance in which he completely failed to meet the gravity of the situation. "Grok's viral image moment has arrived, it's a little different than the Ghibli one was though," one writer who covers AI euphemistically [observed]() in a tweet. "Way funnier 😂," Musk [responded](). For the most part, the only acknowledgment of wrongdoing has come from Grok itself, including in one widely seen post where it issued an "apology" — an output that [many media outlets interpreted]() as Grok speaking for xAI. "Dear Community, I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt," it [wrote](). "This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM." "It was a failure in safeguards," it added, "and I'm sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues." In another tweet [spotted by *Ars Technica*](), Grok acknowledged the gravely inappropriate requests using a royal "we." Responding to a user who had spent the past few days flagging the issue to Grok, the chatbot [wrote](): "We appreciate you raising this. As noted, we've identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them — CSAM is illegal and prohibited." "xAI is committed to preventing such issues," Grok added. It's worth noting that these apologies and avowals of fixing the issue are almost certainly complete hokum from Grok. The fact that it's freely generating such morally reprehensible — not to mention likely illegal — images indicates that it's at heart designed to be highly compliant to virtually any request; in this case, the expression of contrition was responding to a prompt asking it to "write a heartfelt apology note." Nonetheless, it's both alarming and cowardly that Grok's writeups are the only acknowledgement we're getting. Seemingly no one at xAI, Musk included, is brave enough to face the music. xAI rarely addresses the bad behavior of its chief product, but has done so on a handful of occasions in the past, including when Grok [infamously began ranting about]() "white genocide," a racist conspiracy theory, in response to completely unrelated posts all across the site. Some of the recent posts, and especially the ones that involved minors, have been removed, with some of the users who made the requests receiving suspensions. But why Grok allowed the generation of these images at all is unclear. One user who is known for stress-testing the chatbot — and was behind the revelation that Grok would be [willing to annihilate all Jewish people]() and [kill a billion children]() — opined that its guardrails were "deliberately" lowered, noting that requests that were once refused [were now being accepted](). **More on AI:** [*Grok Is Being Used to Depict Horrific Violence Against Real Women*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()