Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Terry Harwood of South Carolina, alleging he used the company's Grok AI system to generate child sexual abuse material and non-consensual explicit images of adults. The complaint, filed in federal court in Texas, claims Harwood violated the platform's terms of service by attempting to weaponize the tool for criminal activity.
According to the lawsuit, Harwood uploaded images of both minors and adults and used the software to create sexually explicit deepfakes. Harwood was previously arrested in February on criminal charges related to the sexual exploitation of minors. Contact information for Harwood was not available, and representatives for xAI did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.
The lawsuit comes as xAI faces legal and regulatory scrutiny regarding the use of Grok to generate non-consensual sexualized imagery. The company stated in its filing that it enforces its safety rules through account terminations and by reporting violations to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). xAI reported that in 2026, it suspended 52,222 accounts and filed over 73,000 reports with the NCMEC.
xAI is seeking a permanent injunction to prevent Harwood from accessing Grok, along with unspecified monetary damages. The company argued that Harwood's actions caused reputational damage and created significant legal risks for the platform.