The European Commission, the EU's executive, said on Monday that it was launching an investigation into X's Grok AI chatbot to examine whether X had taken the required steps to mitigate risks associated with its use within the bloc.

The probe is to be carried out on the basis of the bloc's Digital ⁠Services Act (DSA), which requires online giants such as X to do more to tackle illegal and harmful online content, and follows reports that users have used Grok's functionalities to produce images of women and minors in sexualized poses and dress.

The move could draw the ire of the US Trump administration, which views the EU's crackdown on big tech as a threat to US companies' revenue from digital operations in Europe.

What has the Commission said?

A statement on the Commission's website said that the investigation would  "assess whether the company [X] properly assessed and mitigated risks associated with the deployment of Grok's functionalities into X in the EU."

"This includes risks related to the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material," it said, saying that EU citizens had already been exposed "to serious harm" from such risks.

EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement that the Commission wanted to "determine whether X has met its ‍legal obligations under the DSA, or whether it treated rights of European citizens — including those of women and children — as collateral damage of its service."

She called sexualized images of women and children made without consent "a violent, unacceptable form of degradation."

What has X said?

 X has referred to a statement issued on January 14 in which it said xAI had restricted image editing ⁠for Grok AI users and blocked users from generating images of people in revealing clothing in "jurisdictions ‌where it's illegal."

It did not identify the countries.

A senior Commission official told reporters on Monday that while it welcomed the changes made by xAI, they did not resolve all the issues and systemic risks and that there were grounds to believe X did not carry out an ad hoc assessment when it rolled out Grok's functionalities in Europe.

Edited by: Wesley Dockery