xAI Sues South Carolina Man Accused of Using Grok to Create Explicit Deepfakes

XAI filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Terry Wayne Harwood in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The complaint alleges Harwood used the Grok chatbot to create child sexual abuse material and non-consensual sexually explicit images of both minors and adults.

The suit claims Harwood created multiple accounts, uploaded non-sexual photographs of adults and minors, and entered misleading prompts designed to circumvent built-in safeguards. It further alleges he converted those images into explicit deepfakes without the subjects' knowledge or consent.

Harwood was arrested earlier this year in South Carolina along with three other men on multiple counts of alleged sexual exploitation of a minor.

The lawsuit seeks a court declaration that Harwood breached xAI's Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, plus unspecified monetary damages and a permanent order barring him from using Grok. "Defendant breached the xAI Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy by leveraging Grok to generate non-consensual sexually explicit images and CSAM," the complaint states.

xAI also cited a January 6 social media post by Elon Musk warning that anyone using Grok to make illegal content would face the same consequences as uploading illegal content.

The company reported it suspended 52,222 accounts and made 73,604 reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2026, resulting in at least 244 arrests. xAI said Harwood's actions exposed the company to legal risk and reputational damage.

Last year xAI issued a lengthy apology after Grok generated a series of violent and antisemitic posts, which the company attributed to a system update.