‘Unthinkable behavior’: Von der Leyen slams Musk’s AI for undressing photos of women

A deepfake tool has sparked investigations and now furious criticism from the head of the European Commission.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen blasted Elon Musk’s platform X over the spread of sexually explicit deepfakes created using its AI chatbot Grok.

"I am appalled that a tech platform is enabling users to digitally undress women and children online. This is unthinkable behavior. And the harm caused by these deepfakes is very real," von der Leyen said in an interview with multiple European media outlets, including Reuters and Corriere della Sera.

"We will not be outsourcing child protection and consent to Silicon Valley. If they don't act, we will," she warned.

Since the beginning of January, thousands of women and teenagers, including public figures, have reported that their photos published on social media have been “undressed” and put in bikinis by Grok at the request of users.

The deepfake tool has prompted investigations from regulators across Europe, including in Brussels, Dublin, Paris and London.

The European Commission ordered X on Thursday to retain "all internal documents and data relating to Grok" — an escalation of the ongoing investigation into X's content moderation policies — after calling the nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes “illegal,” “appalling” and “disgusting.”

In response, X made its controversial AI image generation feature only available to users with paid subscriptions. European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said that limiting the tool's use to paying subscribers did not mean an end to the EU's investigation.

The scandal has emerged as a fresh test of the EU’s resolve to rein in Musk and U.S. Big Tech firms. Only a month earlier, Brussels fined X €120 million for breaching the bloc’s landmark platform law, the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The fine sparked a swift and forceful reaction from Washington, with the U.S. administration imposing a travel ban on the EU’s former digital commissioner and chief architect of the DSA, Thierry Breton.