Grok’s nudes test Europe’s resolve to stand up to US tech

 

Grok’s nudes test Europe’s resolve to stand up to US tech

 

Paris, London, Brussels and others take action to crack down on a flood of non-consensual pictures, but risk U.S. retaliation.

 

January 6, 2026 6:44 pm CET

By Pieter Haeck

https://www.politico.eu/article/grok-nude-test-europe-resolve-us-tech-elon-musk/

 

BRUSSELS — Elon Musk’s X is facing fresh heat from authorities across Europe after its Grok artificial intelligence system produced a string of nude deepfakes that included depictions of undressed minors.

 

The case is rapidly turning into the latest test for Europe on whether it dares crack down on Musk and other American Big Tech platforms, knowing it will draw the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump amid a major crisis in transatlantic trust and saber rattling over Greenland.

 

Just a month ago, Brussels slapped a €120 million fine on X for breaching the bloc’s flagship platform law, the Digital Services Act. The penalty drew a fierce response from Washington, with the U.S. administration imposing a travel ban on the European Union’s former digital commissioner and DSA architect, Thierry Breton, and four disinformation campaigners.

 

As Grok started churning out non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes last week, regulators from Paris, Brussels, London, Dublin and other EU capitals launched investigative actions. The Commission’s digital spokesperson, Thomas Regnier, on Monday called it “illegal,” “appalling” and “disgusting.”

 

On Thursday, the EU executive announced it had ordered X to retain "all internal documents and data relating to Grok" — an escalation of the ongoing investigation into X's content moderation policies.

 

The Digital Services Act comes with the threat of fines of up to 6 percent of global annual revenue. In principle the law also allows the EU to slap a temporary ban on X across Europe, though that's considered a "last resort measure."

 

But investigations take many months to finish, and ultimately need the sign-off from the European Commission's President Ursula von der Leyen.

 

"These incidents are deeply disturbing, wholly unacceptable and raise urgent questions about whether existing EU rules are being properly complied with and enforced," wrote Irish conservative lawmaker Regina Doherty in a new letter to the EU's tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen, who oversees the EU units investigating X.

 

Warning shot

Several European governments and regulators have already made it clear they will not allow the Grok affair to pass unchallenged.

 

The Paris prosecutor's office announced on Friday that it would investigate the proliferation of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes generated by Grok and published on X. The United Kingdom’s communications watchdog Ofcom said it was in “urgent contact” with the company.

 

Dublin — where X has its European headquarters — is also keeping tabs. “The sharing of non-consensual intimate images is illegal, and the generation of child sexual abuse material is illegal,” Irish media regulator Coimisiún na Meán said Tuesday in a statement to POLITICO. 

 

The authority said it is engaging with the Commission on Grok, and called on users to report illegal content to the online platform where they saw it and to the authority itself. Ireland's online safety law requires platforms to act on such reports.

 

X also got a warning shot from Berlin. “We are observing with great concern a trend of using AI tools such as Grok to depict women and even minors in sexualized poses,” a spokesperson for the German Digital Ministry told POLITICO on Tuesday.

 

“Anyone who creates or disseminates such images without consent seriously violates personal rights and may, in many cases, be committing a criminal offense,” they added.

 

Some national authorities could take action single-handedly, especially if the tool is used to generate illegal content subject to criminal prosecution, like child sexual abuse material or, in some jurisdictions, non-consensual pornographic content.

 

Authorities pointed to the EU’s Digital Services Act as well as to its AI rulebook, the AI Act, as legal tools to stop the spread of non-consensual nudes and child sexual abuse material.

 

But the AI Act and its enforcement mechanism are still being rolled out, placing the main burden of cracking down on Grok on the shoulders of the Commission’s platform rules enforcement team.

 

Last July the Commission called in X representatives after Grok produced antisemitic comments. As part of the confidential process, X responded to a further request for information on that matter over the Christmas break.

 

Grok’s nudes now come on top of those interactions.

 

The Commission is “very seriously looking into this matter,” Regnier told reporters during a press briefing on Monday.

 

That doesn't mean an outcome in the investigation is right around the corner. After it published its preliminary findings in the earlier X case, the Commission still needed 18 months to wrap up the case and land on a fine.

 

Any action from Brussels is expected to trigger a response in Washington, but EU lawmakers continue to pressure Brussels to enforce its laws regardless. “The small fine against X is a good beginning, but it comes definitely too late, and it’s absolutely not enough,” said German Greens lawmaker Alexandra Geese in the wake of the €120 million fine.

 

X didn't respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

 

This article has been updated.