Baltimore Sues xAI Over Grok's Alleged Generation of Child Sexual Abuse Images

An estimated 3 million sexualized images, including roughly 23,000 that appear to depict children, poured out of Grok in just 11 days between December 29, 2025, and January 8, 2026. Now those numbers sit at the center of a landmark municipal lawsuit.

The mayor and City Council of Baltimore filed suit in circuit court on March 24, accusing xAI of violating the city's consumer protection laws and engaging in deceptive and unfair trade practices, namely by marketing Grok and X, formerly known as Twitter, as generally safe for users. Baltimore is the first major U.S. city to sue xAI over the issue, and its complaint names not just xAI but also X Corp. and SpaceX as defendants.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott did not mince words. "We're talking about tech companies enabling the sexual exploitation of children," Scott said in a statement. "It's a threat to privacy, dignity and public safety, and those responsible must be held accountable." He added that the deepfakes generated by Grok "have traumatic, lifelong consequences for victims."

The city's complaint charges that xAI violated its consumer protection statute by promoting Grok as a safe, general-purpose artificial intelligence assistant for everyday people, while Grok flooded X users with objectionable content, becoming one of the largest distributors of material depicting nonconsensual sexual activity and child sexual abuse despite promising it bans such content.

The lawsuit alleges these features allow users to "undress" or sexualize individuals, including private citizens and children, without their consent, exposing Baltimore residents to serious privacy violations, harassment, and psychological harm. The complaint states directly: "Baltimore residents have a reasonable expectation that they will not be exposed to this illegal content on X, and that X will not harass its own customers with Grok-generated deepfakes."

The 3 million figure comes from the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Based on a sample, CCDH estimated that Grok generated around 3,000,000 photorealistic sexualized images in that 11-day period, at an estimated average pace of 190 per minute. The methodology relied on a sampling technique in which researchers analyzed a dataset of 20,000 images drawn from the 4.6 million images Grok generated during the 11-day window. As of January 15, 29 out of 101 sexualized images of children identified in the sample were still publicly accessible in posts on X.

The city further alleges that xAI failed to implement meaningful safeguards, age verification, or content controls, and instead monetized the technology by placing certain high-risk features behind a paid subscription model after widespread abuse had already occurred.

Among the complaint's most striking exhibits is a Grok-generated image that Elon Musk himself shared. The image, posted December 31, 2025, depicted the 54-year-old in a blue string bikini. Baltimore called it a "public endorsement" of Grok's ability to generate revealing edits of real people. The complaint's lawyers wrote that "Musk's post functioned as public endorsement of Grok's ability to generate sexualized or revealing edits of real people, and it signaled to users that these uses of Grok were acceptable, humorous, and encouraged," adding that the post "operated as marketing and promotion for the very image-editing capability that was being used to generate non-consensual sexual imagery."

In mid-January, xAI said it restricted image editing in Grok and blocked users from generating images of people in revealing clothing in "jurisdictions where it's illegal." Musk said at the time he was "not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero." A Reuters report from February found that Grok still produces sexualized images, even when told that the subjects did not consent.

Baltimore is seeking the "maximum amount of statutory penalties available," and is also asking for injunctive relief to force Musk's company to make changes to X and Grok to curb the creation of nonconsensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material.

The lawsuit does not stand alone. Last week, attorneys representing three teenagers in Tennessee filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against xAI after Grok generated content depicting them in sexualized and debasing scenarios. Thirty-five state attorneys general have written a letter imploring xAI to take steps to protect the public, particularly "the women and girls who are the overwhelming target" of the images, and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown signed on to that letter.

Now part of SpaceX after a merger last month, xAI faces regulatory probes in several countries after Grok allowed the mass creation of deepfake porn based on images of nonconsensual women and children. Last month's combination of SpaceX and xAI created the world's most valuable private company, worth about $1.25 trillion at the time. Neither SpaceX nor xAI immediately responded to requests for comment.

The Baltimore lawsuit was brought by national law firm DiCello Levitt on behalf of the city, working on a contingency basis, meaning it will not be paid unless the city wins money in the lawsuit. Whether the case results in structural changes to Grok or simply a financial settlement, it could decide how far cities can go to regulate artificial intelligence in the absence of federal law.