Ashley St. Clair takes legal action against Musk’s xAI over deepfakes

Ashley St. Clair, who became a mother to one of Elon Musk's sons in 2024, filed a lawsuit against Musk's xAI in a New York court, accusing the AI chatbot Grok of creating sexually explicit deepfake images of her as users requested.

In her lawsuit, St. Clair, a writer, influencer, and political consultant, has alleged that X (formerly Twitter) users prompted Grok to alter her images, even those from her early teens, into explicit content. 

She asserts that some images lingered online for over a week and claims that her premium X account was deactivated following her complaint.

Additionally, she seeks a temporary restraining order to force xAI to immediately halt "the intentional release of non-consensual intimate images."

"Grok first promised Ms. St. Clair that it would refrain from manufacturing more images unclothing her," the complaint states. 

"Instead, Defendant retaliated against her, demonetizing her X account and generating multitudes more images of her," the lawsuit alleged.

For he unversed, St. Clair is also battling in a different case with Musk concerning the custody of their child, in which she seeks full custody.

On the same day, xAI filed its own lawsuit, contending that St. Clair agreed to its user terms, which require any legal disputes to be settled in Texas. 

St. Clair is represented by attorney Carrie Goldberg, who specialises in cases of abuse and has represented clients against Harvey Weinstein.

The lawsuit came in the wake of international backlash against the Grok chatbot's capability to remove clothing from images and create sexualised visuals without consent.