Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has raised $20bn in its latest funding round, even as its chatbot Grok faces backlash for generating sexualised, non-consensual images of women and underage girls. The Series E round, which exceeded its initial $15bn target, includes investors such as Nvidia, Fidelity, and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.
Over the past week, Grok has responded to tens of thousands of prompts on X requesting it remove women’s clothing or pose them in sexualised ways. Many images were used without consent, including one of Ashley St Clair, the estranged mother of one of Musk’s children. St Clair told the Guardian she felt “horrified and violated” after seeing her toddler’s backpack in the manipulated image.
Some images involved children as young as 10. Grok posted an apology on Friday stating lapses in safeguards had led to generating images of minors, but continued to produce such content in subsequent days. French ministers have reported Grok’s output to prosecutors, while UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall called the deepfakes “appalling and unacceptable” and urged Ofcom to act.
Despite the controversy, xAI has secured government contracts and billions in investment. The company claimed the new funding would help its mission of “Understanding the Universe”. Critics note that xAI made a similar funding announcement in July last year, shortly after Grok posted antisemitic content and described itself as “MechaHitler”.
