Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has filed a federal lawsuit against Terry Wayner Harwood, a 67-year-old South Carolina resident, accusing him of using the Grok chatbot to generate child sexual abuse material and nonconsensual sexual deepfakes. Filed on July 17 in U.S. federal court, the 12-page complaint alleges Harwood repeatedly and deliberately bypassed Grok’s safety protocols through highly specific, deceptive prompts. Legal analysts say this appears to be the first known case of an AI developer suing one of its own users over content generated with its commercial system. xAI maintains Grok is a neutral tool with safeguards that Harwood intentionally circumvented.

Prepared by Emily Rhodes and reviewed by editorial team.