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Elon Musk’s xAI and its chatbot Grok have been banned from creating non-consensual AI-generated images of adults and children by a Dutch court, adding to growing legal pressure on the company.
Amsterdam’s District Court issued a legal order on Thursday prohibiting xAI from generating and distributing sexual imagery “whereby persons are partially or wholly be stripped naked without having given explicit permission for this,” according to a Google translation of the court statement.
The ruling, a first-of-its-kind case against Grok in Europe, extends to child sexual abuse material and prevents the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, from offering Grok as a function in the region. xAI faces a penalty of 100,000 euros ($115,000) for every day it fails to comply with the ruling, with a maximum fine of 10 million euros, per the injunction.
The case was brought by Dutch non-profit group Offlimits, which fights online sexual abuse, particularly against children and young people. xAI was also ordered to pay Offlimits legal costs of 2.2 million euros within 14 days.
“The judge drew a clear line yesterday: technology is not a license to violate human rights online,” Robbert Hoving, managing director at Offlimits, said in a statement. “It is also wonderful that a vote was held in Europe yesterday for a ban on Nudify tools. It is a double celebration, because that is important. You should enjoy the same online rights in every European country.”
CNBC reached out to xAI for a comment on the ruling but hasn’t received a response yet.
An estimated three million sexualized images were generated by Grok between Dec. 29 and Jan. 9, 2026, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). It found that over 23,000 of those images appeared to depict children.
xAI moved to block Grok from being able to create sexualized images of real people on X in January, with the restriction applying to all users, including paid subscribers. However, Offlimits found the restrictions were easily bypassed, and the judge ruled its measures were insufficient in protecting users appropriately.
Numerous lawsuits have been filed against xAI, with Baltimore becoming the first major U.S. city on Tuesday to sue the company for violating the city’s consumer protection laws and deceptively marketing Grok and X as safe for users.
The complaint mentioned a “put her in a bikini” trend in which Grok was used to nudify images of others. xAI’s CEO Musk also took part by sharing an image of himself in a string bikini, created by Grok.
Additionally, three teenagers in Tennessee sued xAI last week, after Grok created content showing them in sexually explicit poses and scenarios.
Meanwhile, the European Commission opened an investigation into xAI in January over the spreading of sexually explicit material of children and other individuals non consensually and is being probed under the Digital Services Act (DSA) regulation.
U.K. online safety regulators Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office have launched their own separate investigations into X and the distribution of non-consensual sexualised imagery.
While a broader ruling hasn’t been implemented across Europe, Southeast Asian countries Malaysia and Indonesia blocked access to Grok in January over the generation of non-consensual sexual content following “repeated failures by X Corp” to address the risks associated with the AI tool.
