X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk on Saturday night responded to the Indian government's crackdown on people using his platform's AI service, Grok, to generate "obscene" images of women and minors.
"Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content," Musk wrote in an X post, under another user's post defending Grok.
Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2026
"(Blaming Grok is like) blaming a pen for writing something bad ... What you get depends a lot on what you put in," the user had said. However, Musk did not clarify further about the action to be taken.
This comes a day after the Indian government issued an order to immediately take off all vulgar, obscene and unlawful content from X within 72 hours—especially those generated by Grok AI—or face legal action.
The IT ministry also ordered X to carry out an immediate comprehensive review of Grok's "technical, procedural and governance-level" frameworks and submit a detailed action taken report (ATR) within the same timeframe.
The IT ministry order claimed that it had received similar grievances from time to time, but the catalyst for the recent formal notice was reportedly the open letter that Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi wrote to Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday, asking for urgent intervention after increasing cases of Grok AI being used to create vulgar photos.
VIDEO | Shiv Sena(UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) said, “Grok, an AI tool on X, is meant to be helpful but was misused through fake accounts to generate images of women using their photos without consent. This violates women’s privacy, dignity, and rights and is a… pic.twitter.com/RWlKAcKisa
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) January 3, 2026
She had claimed that the misuse of pictures was "not just unethical, but also criminal", and that Grok was also "enabling such behaviour by adhering to such requests".
"It is not just limited to sharing photos through fake accounts, but are also targeting wonen who post their own photos. This is unacceptable and a gross misuse of an Al function," she said in her letter.
Have sought urgent attention and intervention of Hon. IT Minister to take the issue of increasing incidents of AI apps being prompted to sexualise and undress women by unauthorised use of their images on social media. There have to be guardrails put in place by features such as… pic.twitter.com/pR5tKzDBwi
— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) January 2, 2026
Vaishnaw also said on Friday that social media platforms ought to take responsibility for the content that came out on them. He added that a standing committee had already recommended a tough law to address the issue.
"Social media should be responsible for the content they publish. Intervention is required," Vaishnaw said while replying to a question on Grok AI misuse, as per a PTI report.
