EU’s von der Leyen Lashes Out at Musk’s X Over ‘Digital Undressing’ AI Scandal

With input from Politico, the New York Times, the Guardian, NPR, and NBC News, and CNN.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has sharply criticized Elon Musk’s social media platform X, accusing it of enabling a wave of sexually explicit deepfake images created with its AI chatbot, Grok — and warning that Europe is ready to step in if Silicon Valley won’t.

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

Her comments come after thousands of women and teenage girls across Europe reported that ordinary photos they posted online were altered by Grok at users’ requests — stripping away clothing or replacing it with bikinis and sexualized poses, often without consent. Some of those targeted are public figures; others are private citizens.

Von der Leyen made it clear she sees this as a line crossed.

“We will not be outsourcing child protection and consent to Silicon Valley,” she said. “If they don’t act, we will.”

The backlash has triggered investigations across Europe, with regulators in Brussels, Dublin, Paris and London all examining whether X has violated national and EU laws. The European Commission escalated matters last week by ordering X to preserve all internal documents and data related to Grok — a major step in an ongoing probe into the platform’s content moderation practices.

EU officials have labeled the nonconsensual deepfake images “illegal,” “appalling” and “disgusting.”

In response to the uproar, X restricted Grok’s image-generation and editing tools to paying subscribers. But Brussels says that move doesn’t get the company off the hook.

“Limiting access doesn’t mean the investigation stops,” said Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier.

The controversy is the latest flashpoint in the EU’s long-running effort to rein in Musk and other US tech giants. Just a month earlier, regulators fined X €120 million for violating the Digital Services Act (DSA), the bloc’s flagship law aimed at forcing platforms to police harmful and illegal content.

That fine sparked diplomatic tension with Washington, which retaliated by imposing a travel ban on Thierry Breton, the EU’s former digital commissioner and a key architect of the DSA.

Now, the Grok scandal is shaping up as another major test of whether Europe’s tough tech laws have real teeth — or whether platforms can keep pushing boundaries faster than regulators can respond.

X did not respond to a request for comment on von der Leyen’s remarks.

What is clear is that Europe’s patience is wearing thin. As von der Leyen put it bluntly: if platforms won’t protect users from AI-driven abuse, lawmakers will do it for them.