Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins/Futurism. Source: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
Just yesterday, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX had acquired his AI company XAI, a merger that made the rocket maker the world’s most valuable private company, but raised important questions about bringing two companies with different missions under the same wing.
Now, the recently incorporated unit faces one of its first major tests. On Tuesday, French authorities raided the offices of Elon Musk-owned social media site X, as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into sexual deepfakes generated by its AI chatbot Grok. After the acquisition, of course, those X offices are now SpaceX offices.
The raid was conducted by the cyber crime unit of the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office in collaboration with the French police and Europol. And it’s perhaps an early warning sign that all the baggage SpaceX is inheriting from circling Musk’s controversial AI efforts could come back to haunt the company in the future.
In an announcement, Paris prosecutors said he was being investigated for criminal offenses related to the distribution of “child pornographic images”, violation of individual rights through “sexual deepfakes” and denial of “crimes against humanity”. Per nbc news.
In addition to the search of X’s offices, Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino were issued a subpoena to appear and answer questions the week of April 20.
SpaceX is not without controversy: Its Starship rocket has generated considerable scrutiny and public backlash over its frequent explosions, which critics argue threaten public safety and violate environmental laws. But overall, it’s Musk’s most beloved venture, because space exploration is something that earns a lot of public goodwill, serving some larger mission for mankind as a whole. Now, its image is undoubtedly being tarnished by its association with xAI and Grok.
Making the wrong kind of headlines is nothing new for Grok in particular. Last month, French prosecutors launched an investigation into Musk’s platform after an AI chatbot was used to generate non-consensual sexual images of real people, many of whom appeared to be minors, in a week-long spree that began in late December and lasted through January.
The digital “undressing” trend was so out of control that AI content analysis firm CopyLeaks estimated that Grok was producing a non-consensual sexual image every single minute. Overall, the Center for Combating Digital Hate estimated Of these, approximately 3,000,000 sexually explicit images were created, including over 23,000 images of children.
The prosecutor’s office also said it was investigating the distribution of Holocaust denial material on the platform. Musk’s
It appears that governments abroad are taking Grok’s AI nudity of women and children more seriously. Indonesia and Malaysia have banned access to Grok However, Indonesia and Malaysia have banned access to Grok just got my ban lifted “Conditionally.” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to crack down On chatbots and showed support for Ofcom, the country’s communications regulator, after announcing its own investigation into Groke.
Mirroring developments across the channel, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office on Tuesday announced its investigation into Grok over its “potential to produce harmful sexual image and video content”. Per BBC. “The reports about Grok raise extremely troubling questions about how people’s personal data has been used to create intimate or sexual images without their knowledge or consent, and whether the necessary safeguards were in place to prevent this,” William Malcolm, the ICO’s executive director for regulatory risk and innovation, said in a statement.
Renewed regulatory pressure comes overseas Latest reporting from Washington Post It detailed how some Employees said the company had loosened controls on sexual content and ignored repeated warnings that Grok could allow users to create sexually explicit images of children and celebrities that could be illegal. xAI’s security team reportedly consisted of only two or three people for most of 2025.
Although Starship and the revenge-porn-producing Grok have little in common, Musk explained in an announcement about the acquisition that space-based AI was “the only way to scale” the technology in the long term because large amounts of solar power could be produced and all the unused real estate that houses data centers in orbit opens up. He also said he would like to populate Earth’s orbit with AI satellites so he can compare the “sensitive Sun.” These are ambitions that will take years to build — but in the meantime, SpaceX will have to maintain its now close relationship with the CSAM-generating AI.
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