xAI accuses of using AI tool for child sex | Technology News

The lawsuit accuses Terry Harwood of misusing xAI to bypass security and create deep dives that affect children.

Elon Musk’s XAI has filed a lawsuit against a South Carolina man who was arrested earlier this year for child molestation, alleging that he misused the company’s AI tool to create child pornography.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Texas on Tuesday, alleges Terry Harwood willfully violated company laws to manufacture the products.

“(The) Defendant opened numerous xAI accounts using false credentials. Despite expressly agreeing to abide by the xAI Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, the Defendant devised deceptive methods to circumvent Grok’s built-in security measures and then misused a tool to convert non-sexual images into pornographic images without the 12-image notification.

The suit alleges Harwood posted non-sexual images of adults and children and attempted to create so-called “deepfakes” that made them sexual.

“An examination of the xAI accounts of the Defendant’s xAI also shows that many times during the relevant period, the Plaintiff offered to Grok to modify such images to be sexualized by the people of the images, to which Grok responded by refusing to comply with the said information on the grounds that such content violates Grok’s increased security,” he complained.

“In response, the Defendant has repeatedly filed additional, and amended, attempts to thwart Grok’s efforts.”

xAI is also seeking monetary damages, although the lawsuit did not specify a dollar amount, as well as a court order barring Harwood from permanently using the platform, which has more than 2.6 million users.

The suit is the first to be brought by an AI company against one of its users and comes within the scope of xAI’s global evaluation by allowing users to create this platform in the first place.

Grok has been under scrutiny in Washington, has been passing between European authorities, and has faced bans in Malaysia and Indonesia regarding the sexual content that can be made on the platform.

Earlier this year, Musk pushed back on the grounds that Grok created AI-generated child sexual images, particularly nude images.

“I (I) don’t know about any nude photos made by Grok. Literally zero,” Musk said in an X post in January.

xAI’s complaint states that the company “enforces its policies against infringers by suspending accounts, terminating accounts, and reporting suspected cases to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.”

The complaint shows that the platform suspended more than 52,000 accounts and generated more than 73,000 complaints to the agency, resulting in nearly 250 arrests in 2026 alone.