Labour MP sues Elon Musk’s xAI company over fake sexualised images

Jess Asato was portrayed wearing a bikini in Grok-generated images after she criticised creation of such non-consensual pictures

A Labour MP has taken legal action against Elon Musk’s xAI company after saying its Grok tool helped a user produce fake sexualised pictures of her, part of a wave of such images that flooded the social media platform X earlier this year.

Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft, said in January that seeing herself portrayed by the AI tool as wearing a bikini without her consent was “violating”.

In a claim submitted to the high court in London, Asato said xAI – now a subsidiary of SpaceX, which also owns X – breached laws connected to data protection and the misuse of private information by letting users of the site prompt Grok to create such images, according to the Financial Times .

Asato told the newspaper that as well as creating images of her in a bikini, Grok also produced a video “showing her being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault”.

Her legal case follows a similar lawsuit filed in New York state by Ashley St Clair , the mother of one of Musk’s children. She alleged explicit images were also generated of her by Grok, including one image in which she was underage.

Asato’s attempt to sue xAI could become a test case for how much such tools and their creators can be held responsible for what users produce with them. She told the FT that the images of her were generated after she condemned the creation of such non-consensual sexualised pictures.

She said: “My hope is that this will rebalance individuals’ rights against very large tech companies that should have put safeguards in place before they harmed women and children.”