Class action suit against AI makers over deepfake child sexual abuse material expands

In this photo illustration, the Grok website is seen through a magnifying glass on a computer screen on February 12, 2026. Grok is the AI chatbot built by Elon Musk's SpaceXAI, formerly known as xAI. A class action lawsuit filed against SpaceXAI and Stability AI alleges the companies' AI tools were used to make sexually explicit images of children. Pablo Vera/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Pablo Vera/AFP via Getty Images New plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against Elon Musk's AI company, SpaceXAI, allege that the company's image-generation models were used to create child sexual abuse material and that the company failed to adequately share information about an alleged perpetrator with authorities. Two plaintiffs, one in Wyoming and the other in Wisconsin, joined the lawsuit filed by three Tennessee teenagers earlier this year, according to an amended complaint filed on Tuesday. All the plaintiffs are referred to as Jane Does. The suit was also expanded to include Stability AI, the company behind the Stable Diffusion image generator, as a defendant. The suit alleges that the perpetrators, including a plaintiff's male friend and another plaintiff's stepfather, used the companies' AI models to alter photos taken when the plaintiffs were underage to make child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The five plaintiffs accuse the companies of producing CSAM, benefiting from sex trafficking ventures, negligence, defective product design and creating a public nuisance. "Public nuisance means that this is not just something that is problematic for our clients … this is something that is a scourge on society," said Annika Martin, an attorney for all five plaintiffs. "We want to put these guardrails in place so that we do not cause this harm across an entire generation of children." The plaintiffs are asking the AI companies to install more effective guardrails to prevent the creation of exploitative and abusive imagery as well as seeking monetary compensation. The case of Jane Doe 4 While SpaceXAI, like other internet companies, is required by law to report suspected child sexual exploitation, including CSAM, to the nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the lawsuit alleges that the company failed to adequately do so. SpaceXAI was previously known as xAI. The company rebranded this month following its merger with Musk's SpaceX earlier this year. According to the complaint, the stepfather of Jane Doe 4, a woman in her 20s in Wyoming, used SpaceXAI's chatbot, Grok, to generate about 7,000 sexually explicit images and videos from a single photograph taken when Jane Doe 4 was about 11. The AI-generated images included depictions of her nude, performing sexual acts on men, including her stepfather. Some images also included explicit captions. SpaceXAI only sent one tip regarding Jane Doe 4 to NCMEC in February, when the stepfather asked the model to generate an image depicting the girl being raped by multiple men, according to the complaint. The company did not include any of the abusive images with its report, and also failed to share the alleged perpetrator's IP address with NCMEC and law enforcement, even after officials requested it multiple times, according to the complaint. Many electronic service providers submit a large volume of reports of suspicious activity to NCMEC, but do not include "sufficient or actionable information" because the law did not require it, the center wrote in a report in March. When law enforcement eventually tracked down and investigated the stepfather, they found that he, like the other perpetrators mentioned in the lawsuit, traded the sexually explicit images with others online, according to the complaint. Two days after law enforcement searched his digital devices and charged him with child exploitation offenses, he died by suicide. "Jane Doe 4 entered a period of extreme personal crisis," the complaint said. "She had to grapple with the trauma