Apple reportedly threatened to yank Elon Musk’s Grok from its App Store over complaints the AI app wasn’t doing enough to stop users from creating nude or overly sexualized deepfakes — a potentially major blow as Grok came under international scrutiny for the content it was being used to create.
The threat, which surfaced in a recently revealed missive to US senators, came after Apple determined that Grok — along with Musk’s social media site X — were in violation of Apple rules barring overtly sexual material.
Apple took the drastic step after asking X and Grok to clamp down on functions that allowed users to create sexualized deepfakes, according to a Jan. 30 letter cited by NBC News.
Apple had determined Grok’s efforts to address the problem — which included the use of AI to undress images of people with their consent — hadn’t gone far enough, Apple reportedly wrote Democratic Sens. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon.
X had announced a crackdown on using AI for undressing images on Jan. 14, saying that the restriction “applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”
And Apple reportedly said it asked X and Grok to come up with a plan to improve content moderation, though that was found to be lacking.
“Apple … determined that X had substantially resolved its violations, but the Grok app remained out of compliance. As a result, we rejected the Grok submission and notified the developer that additional changes to remedy the violation would be required, or the app could be removed from the App Store,” Apple wrote the senators.
Following Apple’s threat, Grok submitted new code to the tech giant, according to NBC News — apparently resolving the dispute for now.
“Following further engagement and changes by the Grok developer, we determined that Grok had substantially improved and therefore approved its latest submission,” Apple wrote the senators.
The letter, signed by Apple’s senior director of government affairs Timothy Powderly, suggests that Grok came closer than previously known to losing access to the more than 2 billion devices connected to Apple’s software marketplace.
The missive came in the wake of public outrage over sexualized AI images made by Grok and posted on X, with French, UK and European Union authorities launching probes into X. Musk characterized the investigations as attempts at censorship.
Prior to that, X and xAI, which runs Grok, sued Apple in August on allegations it had “dragged out” its review process for Grok updates, according to NBC News — an allegation Apple denied.
The threat from Apple reportedly came after the Democratic trio asked it and Google to remove X and Grok from the marketplaces.
Wyden told NBC News he was “disappointed that Google didn’t treat this matter with the same seriousness as Apple, given the horrific nature of the images these apps have produced.”
It “remains shocking that Trump’s Justice Department took no action to hold X accountable for producing and distributing vast amounts of vile material,” he added.
It’s not known whether Google made a threat similar to Apple’s, NBC noted. Google reportedly told the senators it “immediately engaged” with Musk’s teams “to underscore the importance of policy adherence and to receive assurances that they were committed to addressing the promotion of harmful content.”
The Post has sought comment from Apple, Google, X, Grok and Luján, Markey and Wyden.
