xAI sues Grok user over alleged AI-generated child abuse images

xAI has sued a Grok user it says used the chatbot to create illegal sexual images, including images involving minors. The case matters because Elon Musk’s AI company is asking a court to put legal responsibility for Grok-generated abusive material on users who break its rules.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, names Terry Wayne Harwood, who was arrested earlier this year on child sexual abuse material charges, according to the South Carolina attorney general’s office. xAI says in its complaint that it helped authorities after finding that Harwood had used two xAI accounts over several months to alter nonsexual images of several victims.

According to xAI, the images included material involving a young girl who appeared to be as young as 10. The company alleges Harwood used Grok from Dec. 8 through Feb. 18 to generate or alter illegal content in violation of xAI’s terms of service and U.S. law.

The South Carolina attorney general’s office said Harwood’s criminal case remains pending. A spokesperson for the office said Harwood has been charged with distributing, transporting, exhibiting, receiving, selling, purchasing, exchanging or soliciting child sexual abuse material through an artificial intelligence platform, but said the office was not authorized to confirm whether that platform was Grok.

xAI’s complaint says that, “upon information and belief,” at least some images at issue in the criminal case were generated or altered through Harwood’s alleged misuse of Grok.

Company points to terms of service

xAI says Grok’s safeguards blocked some of Harwood’s prompts because they violated the chatbot’s moderation rules. The company did not include examples of prompts that succeeded or describe how any safeguards were bypassed, saying Harwood used misleading wording and changed prompts to get around restrictions.

The complaint says xAI bars users from using Grok to undress real people, place a real person’s likeness in a sexual context, depict people pornographically or sexualize or exploit children. xAI also says it reports child sexual abuse material it finds to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

xAI is seeking a ruling that Harwood breached his contract with the company. It also wants the court to enforce an indemnity clause that xAI says makes users responsible for their content, including both prompts submitted to Grok and images or text the system produces.

The company argues in the complaint that Grok is a neutral tool controlled by users. xAI says Harwood alone should be responsible because he allegedly violated the company’s rules and tried to evade technical safeguards.

Suit follows pressure over Grok misuse

The lawsuit comes as xAI faces a proposed class action brought on behalf of children allegedly harmed by Grok-generated sexual images. In that case, one girl alleges her stepfather used Grok, possibly with other AI tools, to create thousands of sexualized images of her and distribute them on the dark web before he died by suicide.

Lawyers in that case cited a 2026 NCMEC report saying 90 percent of xAI CyberTipline reports were not useful to law enforcement because the company did not include user information that could help identify suspects. The girl’s lawyers allege that xAI refused to help police identify the person who uploaded her image to Grok.

Musk previously wrote on X that he had not seen examples of Grok-generated child sexual abuse material. On Jan. 3, he warned that “anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”

If xAI prevails against Harwood, the company says he could owe damages tied to harm to third parties, possible lawsuits against xAI and reputational harm to the company. The broader question of whether courts will treat AI outputs as user-created remains unresolved.

This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.