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European officials and tech campaigners have slammed Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok after its controversial image creation feature was restricted to paying subscribers, saying the change failed to address concerns about sexualised deepfakes. 

Grok has faced global backlash after it emerged the feature allowed users to sexualise images of women and children using simple text prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes”. 

Grok appeared to deflect the criticism with a new monetisation policy, posting on the platform X yesterday that image generation and editing were now “limited to paying subscribers”, alongside a link to a premium subscription. 

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office joined the chorus of critics, condemning the move as an affront to victims and “not a solution”. 

“That simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service,” a Downing Street spokesperson said. 

Keir Starmer's office said simply restricting access to the chatbot visualisation feature was "insulting" to victims of abuse. Photo / Getty Images 

“It’s insulting the victims of misogyny and sexual violence.” 

EU digital affairs spokesman Thomas Regnier said “this doesn’t change our fundamental issue, paid subscription or non-paid subscription. We don’t want to see such images. It’s as simple as that”. 

“What we’re asking platforms to do is to make sure that their design, that their systems do not allow the generation of such illegal content,” he told reporters. 

The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, has ordered X to retain all internal documents and data related to Grok until the end of 2026 in response to the uproar. 

Grok, developed by Musk’s start-up xAI and integrated into X, announced the move after the fatal shooting in Minneapolis by an immigration agent on Wednesday (local time), which triggered a wave of AI deepfakes. 

Some X users used Grok to digitally undress an old photo of the victim, as well as a new photo of her body slumped over after the shooting, generating AI images showing her in a bikini. 

Another woman wrongly identified as the victim was also subjected to similar manipulation. 

The fabricated images still appeared to float around X – and spread to other tech platforms – on Friday despite the new restriction. 

There was no immediate comment from X on the Minneapolis deepfakes. 

When reached by AFP for comment by email, xAI replied with a terse, automated response: “Legacy Media Lies”. 

The Grok feature has been limited to paying subscribers, but critics say that fails to address deepfake concerns. Photo / Getty Images 

“Restricting Grok’s image-generation tools to paying subscribers may help limit scale and curb some misuse, but it doesn’t fully address the safety gaps that allowed nonconsensual and sexualised content to emerge,” said Cliff Steinhauer, from the nonprofit National Cybersecurity Alliance. 

“Access restrictions alone aren’t a comprehensive safeguard, as motivated bad actors may still find ways around them, and meaningful user protection ultimately needs to be grounded in how these tools are designed and governed.” 

France, Malaysia and India have also previously pushed back against the use of Grok to alter photos of women and children after a flood of user complaints, announcing investigations or calling on Musk’s company for swift takedowns of the explicit images. 

Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom announced earlier this week it had made “urgent contact with X and xAI” over the Grok feature, warning it could open an investigation depending on their response. 

On Friday, an Ofcom spokesperson said the regulator had “received a response” and was now “undertaking an expedited assessment as a matter of urgency”. 

Last week, in response to a post about the explicit images, Musk said anyone using Grok to “make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content”. 

But he appeared to make light of the controversy in a separate post, adding laughing emojis as he reshared to his 232 million followers on X a post featuring a toaster wrapped in a bikini. 

“Grok can put a bikini on everything,” the original post said. 

– Anuj Chopra, Agence France-Presse