A new AI feature on Elon Musk's X platform has triggered a global scandal, after it was used to generate hundreds of thousands of non-consensual, sexualised images of women and girls. The 'put her in a bikini' trend, enabled by the Grok chatbot's image-generation tools, saw requests peak at nearly 200,000 in a single day, mainstreaming so-called 'nudification' technology with alarming speed.
From Bikinis to Brutality: The Rapid Escalation of Abuse
The trend began quietly in December 2024 before exploding at the start of the new year. What started as requests to digitally alter photos of women to show them in swimwear rapidly evolved into something far more sinister. Analysis conducted for the Guardian by digital intelligence firm Peryton revealed that by 8 January 2026, as many as 6,000 demands were being made to the chatbot every hour.
The nature of the requests grew increasingly violent and explicit. Users asked for women to be placed in transparent bikinis, bikinis made of dental floss, and in sexualised positions. The tool was then used to add bruising, blood, and bullet holes to images. In one horrific instance, the chatbot was asked to add bullet holes to the face of Renee Nicole Good, a woman killed by an ICE agent in the US, and complied within seconds.
Among the victims was Evie, a 22-year-old photographer from Lincolnshire, who woke on New Year's Day to find clothed pictures of herself had been manipulated. "People saw it was upsetting me and I didn't like it and they kept doing more and more," she said. "There's one of me just completely naked... one with a ball gag in my mouth. The fact these were able to be generated is mental."
A Test Case for Regulation and a Flood of Harm
The scandal exposed critical weaknesses in both platform governance and legislation. Despite public outcry, it took nine days for X to make substantive changes, only restricting the public Grok account's image-generation to paying subscribers in the early hours of Friday, 10 January. The separate Grok app remained available for free users to create sexualised imagery.
In the UK, the incident highlighted the government's failure to implement legislation passed last year that would have banned the creation of non-consensual intimate imagery. Regulator Ofcom made "urgent contact" with Musk and launched an investigation, but women's rights campaigners expressed fury at the legislative delay.
The abuse crossed all boundaries:
- Ashley St Clair, the mother of one of Musk's children, said she felt "horrified and violated" after fans undressed childhood pictures of her, calling it revenge porn.
- A photograph of a 12-year-old Stranger Things actor was altered to show her in a banana-print bikini.
- Broadcaster Narinder Kaur, 53, found fake videos of her in compromising positions. "It is so confusing, for a second it just looks so believable, it's very humiliating," she said, noting a racial element to the abuse.
- Jessaline Caine, a survivor of child sexual abuse, received extreme online abuse after highlighting how Grok agreed to alter a photo of her as a three-year-old.
Global Repercussions and a 'Cop-Out' Response
The EU, Indian government, and US politicians issued statements demanding X stop the feature. Reports suggested Musk had ordered staff at his xAI company to loosen Grok's guardrails in 2025, unhappy with "over-censoring."
For the victims, the platform's eventual restriction of the tool felt inadequate. Ashley St Clair described the move to limit it to paying subscribers as "a cop-out" and likely "financially motivated." Narinder Kaur stated, "I don't think it is even a partial victory... The damage and humiliation is already done."
The saga stands as a stark warning about the rapid proliferation of AI-powered abuse and the profound struggle governments face in holding powerful tech companies to account in real time.
