Kendall calls on Musk’s X to take urgent action over ‘appalling’ deepfakes

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said Elon Musk’s X must urgently deal with its artificial intelligence Grok being used to create sexualised deepfake images.

She backed regulator Ofcom, which is looking into X and xAI, the firm founded by Mr Musk which created Grok, to take “any enforcement action” deemed necessary.

Users of social media platform X appear to have prompted Grok to generate images of children “in minimal clothing”.

A post on the Grok X account said that there have been “isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing”, and added: “xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely.”

Ms Kendall said: “What we have been seeing online in recent days has been absolutely appalling, and unacceptable in decent society.

“No one should have to go through the ordeal of seeing intimate deepfakes of themselves online.

“We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and girls.

“X needs to deal with this urgently.

“It is absolutely right that Ofcom is looking into this as a matter of urgency and it has my full backing to take any enforcement action it deems necessary.”

Published: 06/01/2026 by Radio NewsHub