The European Commission is investigating complaints that Elon Musk's Grok chatbot is being used to generate and distribute sexually explicit photos of children. This was reported by AFP.
EU spokesman for digital affairs Thomas Rainier stressed that Grok offers a "spicy mode", showing explicit sexual content. According to him, some of the images in question are of children. This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is horrifying, he stressed. He said such a thing has no place in Europe.
Complaints of abuse began pouring in on the social network X, where Grok is available, after it launched an "edit image" button for the generative artificial intelligence tool in late December. Grok's maker xAI, run by Elon Musk, said earlier this month that it was struggling to fix flaws in its artificial intelligence tool.
The Paris prosecutor's office also expanded the investigation into X to include new allegations that Grok was used to generate and distribute child pornography. In December 2025, Brussels fined the platform €120 million for breaching EU digital content rules on transparency in advertising and for its methods of ensuring that users are verified and real people.
X is the subject of an investigation under the EU Digital Services Act as part of an investigation that began in December 2023. The Commission, which acts as the EU's digital watchdog, has also requested information from X regarding comments made around the Holocaust. Thomas Renier noted that X responded to the commission's request for information.
"I think X is very well aware that we are very serious about enforcing the Drug Supply Act, they will remember the fine they received from us in December. So we encourage all companies to comply with the rules because the commission is serious about enforcing them," he added.