Five anonymous female users sue Elon Musk's xAI and Stability AI over AI-generated CSAM

Updated: July 15, 2026 02:52 pm IST

By: Sahana Venugopal

The Story So Far

Five anonymous individuals — including at least one minor — filed a proposed class action lawsuit in July against Elon Musk's xAI and Stability AI, alleging that the companies' online features were used to create child abuse material. The lawsuit pertains to X platform's Grok chatbot, which was capable of generating sexual content using real people's photos. The lawsuit also alleged that Stability AI attempted to grow its business by enabling its AI models to create sexually explicit content.

How to Refer to Content That Contains Child Abuse

CSAM: This acronym stands for Child Sexual Abuse Material. An alternative form — CSEM, standing for Child Sexual Exploitation Material — is also used in some contexts. CSAM/CSEM is used in place of the phrase "child pornography," thereby indicating that no such legal category can ever exist, as all forms of "child pornography" are inherently criminal and abusive.

What Is the Case About?

The proposed class action lawsuit has been brought forward by five female individuals in the U.S. against xAI and Stability AI. In the lawsuit, they are identified as Jane Doe 1 through 5.

• At least one of them was a minor as of July 7, while the others were minors during the relevant time period.
• The legal filing explained how the five discovered that pictures of them as children had been morphed with AI in order to create child abuse material.
• The lawsuit aims to cover not just the affected individuals, but all people in the United States who had real images of themselves as minors altered by xAI/Grok or a Stability AI-powered app to produce sexual deepfakes.
• The five are seeking civil remedies for personal injuries suffered as a result of the companies' alleged conduct.

Originally filed on March 16 this year, the suit was later expanded in a July 7 filing to include the allegations of two more anonymous female individuals. Stability AI was also added as a defendant at the later stage.

Which Feature in Grok and Stability AI Enabled the Creation of Morphed Images?

Users can now upload real photos into advanced AI apps in order to edit them into new images or even short videos with just a few prompts. While safety filters should stop users from morphing photos of real children or creating sexually abusive content, this is not always the case. Sex predators often scrape photos from public social media accounts in order to morph them with AI.

Regarding the lawsuit:

• First three victims: Their cases are linked, as they were part of the same criminal investigation. The perpetrator allegedly used both Stability AI and Grok to edit regular childhood photos into morphed, sexual images.
• Second and third victims: The perpetrator allegedly used a phone-based app that "relied on Stability AI's image-producing tools" to create sexual deepfakes of children.
• Fourth victim: Allegedly targeted by their stepfather, who is said to have used Grok to create sexual deepfakes out of an existing, non-explicit image.
• Fifth victim: The perpetrator allegedly used Grok to create the abusive material.