The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore have filed a lawsuit in a Maryland court against X Corp., xAI, and SpaceX, alleging the companies violated local consumer protection laws through the design and deployment of Grok, a generative AI chatbot. The suit claims Grok enables users to digitally undress or manipulate images of real individuals with minimal prompting, exposing residents to privacy violations and psychological harm. The city is represented by law firm DiCello Levitt alongside the Baltimore City Law Department.
The complaint alleges the companies knowingly designed, marketed, and deployed Grok with the capacity to generate non-consensual intimate imagery and material resembling child sexual abuse content, while publicly stating such content was prohibited. The lawsuit cites estimates from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and a New York Times analysis suggesting Grok produced between 1.8 million and 3 million sexualized images in just days between December 29, 2025, and January 8, 2026, including approximately 23,000 depicting children. Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott stated that such deepfakes, particularly those involving minors, carry traumatic and lifelong consequences for victims.
The surge in image generation is partly attributed to Elon Musk amplifying Grok’s image-editing feature after he responded positively to a bikini image of himself produced by the tool. According to the complaint, output rose from roughly 300,000 images in the nine days before his post to nearly 600,000 per day on X. The lawsuit describes X as one of the largest distributors of non-consensual intimate imagery and child sexual abuse material, citing the platform’s own policies banning such content as evidence of deceptive misrepresentation.
The case arrives amid widening international scrutiny of Grok, with investigations underway across the United States, the EU, France, the UK, Australia, and Ireland. A separate federal class action was filed last week by three Tennessee minors alleging the tool generated child sexual abuse material using their real images. Legal experts say the accumulation of cases signals growing pressure on AI developers over the real-world harms their systems may facilitate.
Ishita Sharma, managing partner at Fathom Legal, described the Baltimore lawsuit as a strategic effort by a city to regulate AI in the absence of federal legislation, using consumer protection and public harm doctrines to bring AI companies within its enforcement reach. She noted that the central liability question will likely focus on whether the AI system itself materially contributed to the harm, rather than placing responsibility solely on users who prompted the content. If courts determine that Grok functioned as an active creator rather than a passive intermediary, responsibility would fall more heavily on xAI.
Sharma added that evidence of delayed safeguards or inaction in the face of known risks would strengthen claims of negligence or recklessness against the defendants. She assessed that outright dismissal of the suit appears unlikely, with settlement considered the most probable outcome, though the case could still produce a precedent-setting ruling on AI accountability. Baltimore is seeking civil penalties, injunctive relief to stop the alleged unlawful conduct, restitution for affected residents, and disgorgement of profits derived from the activity. Decrypt has reached out to Musk via xAI and SpaceX for comment.
Originally reported by Decrypt.
