xAI filed a lawsuit against South Carolina resident Terry Harwood, alleging he misused its Grok artificial-intelligence system to create child sexual abuse material and other non-consensual imagery.
The Elon Musk-founded company filed the complaint in federal court in Texas on Tuesday. It accused Harwood of violating Grok’s terms of service and asked for damages and a permanent ban on his use of the platform.
According to the complaint, Harwood uploaded non-sexual images of adults and minors and attempted to generate sexually explicit deepfakes from them. The filing also alleged that he created non-consensual sexual images involving adults.
Harwood was arrested in February on charges involving the alleged sexual exploitation of minors. His response to xAI’s civil allegations was not immediately available.
xAI said it suspends or terminates accounts that breach its rules and reports suspected child sexual abuse material to the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children.
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The company claimed in the lawsuit that it suspended 52,222 accounts and submitted 73,604 reports to the organisation during 2026. It said those reports had contributed to at least 244 arrests.
The case follows scrutiny of Grok over claims that users could produce non-consensual sexualised deepfakes. xAI alleged that Harwood’s actions exposed victims to harm while creating legal and reputational risks for the company.
