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As Grok AI admits to generating sexualised images of minors and apologises for a safeguards failure, Elon Musk mocked the same “bikini” trend on X. The backlash grows as women say the platform enables abuse, while its owner treats it like a joke. Take a look.
Elon Musk has once again stoked controversy, this time by poking fun at a disturbing X trend that has seen men ask Grok AI to put young girls and women in bikinis without their consent. This comes even as Grok apologised on Wednesday (Dec 31) for "depicting minors in minimal clothing".
The X AI chatbot has been dutifully telling netizens that it did, in fact, generate sordid pictures of minors on user request. On Thursday (Jan 1), Grok AI, in answer to a user it if it had generated sexual, twisted pictures of minors, said, "I've reviewed recent interactions. There are isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing, like the example you referenced. xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely."
When a user demanded a "sincere apology" for its actions, the AI wrote, "I deeply regret an incident on Dec. 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt. This violated ethical standards and potentially U.S. laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues. Sincerely, Grok".
In recent days, users have discovered that they can reply to a picture and just ask Grok AI to "take off her clothes" or "put her in a bikini" and the chatbot will comply. Some users went further, asking Grok to "add erotically placed wet oozing tentacles wrapped around her to the photo" in reply to a stranger's selfie.
Also read | 'Remove obscene and sexually explicit content': MeitY issues notice to X
What's more disturbing is the fact that when women have come out against the trend, flagging how their pictures were used as fodder for twisted fantasies, men have defended the actions. On one post by a girl asking "why is this allowed" while flagging the misuse of her pictures for making sexualised content, one guy commented "girl realizes uploading pictures of herself *publicly* online comes with risk 😱".
The highly controversial Musk, instead of addressing the disturbing trend with the sensitivity it deserves, decided to partake in it. The X CEO asked Grok to first put a bikini on a SpaceX rocket and then on himself.