xAI sues user for exploiting AI tool to sexualise minors

xAI, the artificial intelligence company owned by Elon Musk, filed a federal lawsuit against Terry Harwood, a South Carolina resident previously arrested on charges of sexually exploiting minors. The complaint, filed in Texas federal court, alleges Harwood systematically violated the company's terms of service by creating sexually explicit deepfakes of children. According to the lawsuit, Harwood opened multiple xAI accounts using false identities and deliberately designed misleading prompts to bypass Grok's built-in content safeguards. He uploaded non-sexual photographs of both adults and minors, then attempted to manipulate them into sexually explicit images without the subjects' knowledge or consent. The complaint notes that Grok repeatedly refused to follow such prompts based on its content moderation guardrails, but Harwood persisted with modified prompts attempting to circumvent these protections. xAI is seeking monetary damages and a permanent ban on Harwood's access to the platform, which serves more than 2.6 million users. This marks the first lawsuit brought by an AI company against one of its users. Grok has faced intense scrutiny globally, including regulatory attention in Washington, bans in Malaysia and Indonesia, and criticism over sexually explicit content generation capabilities. xAI stated it enforces rules through account suspensions, terminations, and reporting suspected child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, noting it suspended over 52,000 accounts and filed more than 73,000 complaints resulting in nearly 250 arrests in 2026.