Three Tennessee teenagers have filed a class action lawsuit against Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, alleging that its large language model powered an app used to create nonconsensual nude and sexually explicit images and videos of them when they were girls.
“Like a rag doll brought to life through the dark arts, this [AI-generated] child can be manipulated into any pose, however sick, however fetishized, however unlawful. To the viewer, the resulting video appears entirely real,” reads the complaint. “For the child, her identifying features will now forever be attached to a video depicting her own child sexual abuse.”
Although the perpetrator did not use xAI’s chatbot Grok or the social media platform X (also owned by xAI), the lawsuit claims that they relied on an unnamed app powered by xAI’s algorithm, citing law enforcement sources.
The plaintiffs accuse xAI of deliberately licensing its technology to app developers, often outside the U.S. “In this way, xAI could attempt to outsource the liability of their incredibly dangerous tool,” the complaint states.
This lawsuit marks the first time underage individuals depicted in AI-generated child sexual abuse material have sued xAI. Over the past year, xAI’s image generation tools have been implicated in producing millions of sexualized images of people.
Influencer Ashley St. Clair, who shares a child with Elon Musk, also sued the company earlier this year over AI-generated images on X depicting her nude as a teenager.
According to the class action complaint, the perpetrator who created the sexualized images had a “close and friendly relationship” with one of the plaintiffs. They used photos sent by the plaintiff, as well as images collected from a yearbook and social media, to generate the explicit content. One video allegedly showed a plaintiff “undressing until she was entirely nude.”
The plaintiffs expressed distress over how lifelike the images and videos appeared. Moreover, the material was not labeled as AI-generated, adding to the harm, according to the complaint.
The perpetrator reportedly made sexually explicit content of 18 other individuals and traded these images online, the complaint alleges. Law enforcement has since arrested the suspect.
Vanessa Baehr-Jones, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said the teenagers—referred to as Jane Does 1, 2, and 3—seek to change how AI companies handle sexually explicit content. “We want to make it one [a business decision] that does not make any business sense anymore,” she stated.
The plaintiffs are pursuing damages for emotional distress and other harms resulting from the AI-generated images.
Apps featuring so-called “nudifying” functions have existed in the internet’s shadows for years. However, last year, major AI companies including Google, OpenAI, and xAI updated their image generation tools to allow users to strip images of people down to bikinis.
Importantly, images created by Google and OpenAI include digital watermarks revealing their AI origin. So far, xAI has not adopted such a standard.
xAI did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/16/nx-s1-5749490/xai-elon-musk-sexualized-images