The European Commission announced on Monday that it has opened an investigation into Elon Musk’s X over the spread of sexually explicit content by the AI chatbot Grok.
The study is being conducted under the European Union’s comprehensive Digital Services Act (DSA) regulations.
“The new investigation will assess whether the company adequately assessed and mitigated the risks associated with deploying Grok’s capabilities to X within the EU,” the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement.
“This includes the risks associated with the distribution of illegal content within the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may constitute child sexual abuse.”
The European Commission said the risk “appears to have materialized and puts EU nationals at serious risk.”
Grok came under fire this year after users were able to prompt the system to generate sexual images of children and other individuals.
Musk’s company announced earlier this month that it had “implemented technical measures” to prevent X’s Grok account from “editing images of real people in revealing clothing, such as bikinis.” The company also limited image creation and editing through Grok on X to paid subscribers. The standalone Grok app, which does not share images publicly, allowed non-paying users to create images of women and children.
European regulators have also joined the list of authorities investigating Grok. The United Kingdom, India, and Malaysia are among a number of other countries investigating sexual images generated by Grok.
X is a target of the European Commission under the DSA, which gives regulators the power to impose hefty fines on tech companies. The DSA is designed to regulate online platforms, their content, and their interactions with consumers.
On Monday, the European Commission announced it would extend an investigation into X and its nomination system that began in 2023. In December, the European Commission fined Company X €120 million ($142.3 million) for breaching its transparency obligations under the DSA.
-CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
