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Baltimore has become the first major U.S. city to file a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI, accusing the company of violating consumer protection laws and engaging in deceptive trade practices. The complaint centers on Grok, xAI’s AI-powered image generator, which has been used to create deepfake pornography depicting women and children without consent.

Mayor Brandon Scott stated that the deepfakes produced by Grok have “traumatic, lifelong consequences for victims” and described the technology as a threat to privacy, dignity, and public safety. “Our city will not stand by and allow this to continue,” Scott said. The lawsuit, filed in Baltimore’s circuit court on March 24, seeks the maximum statutory penalties and injunctive relief to compel xAI and X, formerly Twitter, to implement safeguards against non-consenting intimate images (NCII) and child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The complaint highlights a troubling trend, dubbed “put her in a bikini,” which encouraged Grok users to edit photos of individuals into sexualized content. Lawyers note that Elon Musk’s own participation—sharing images created with Grok depicting him in a string bikini—amounted to an implicit endorsement of these capabilities. “Coming from the owner and principal public face of both [xAI] and X, Musk’s post operated as marketing for the very image-editing capability that was being used to generate non-consensual sexual imagery,” the filing states.

xAI, now merged with SpaceX, faces mounting regulatory scrutiny both domestically and internationally. Last week, attorneys representing three teenagers in Tennessee filed a proposed class-action lawsuit after Grok generated sexualized images of them. Reports from the Internet Watch Foundation, a U.K.-based charity, indicate that girls remain the overwhelming targets of CSAM, accounting for 97% of AI-generated sexualized images assessed in 2025.

Baltimore’s lawsuit seeks broad reforms, including changes to platform design, stricter content moderation, and revisions to marketing practices to prevent the exploitation of residents. As legal pressure mounts, xAI and SpaceX executives have not publicly commented on the city’s claims. The case underscores growing concerns over AI technologies and the responsibility of tech companies to prevent misuse that endangers children and non-consenting adults.