Apple Accuses Elon Musk's X App Of 'Still' Making Non-Consensual Deepfakes; Warns Removal From App Store

Apple privately threatened to remove the Grok app from its App Store after determining that both the X and Grok apps violated its App Store guidelines by enabling the generation of sexualized deepfakes, including non-consensual explicit images of women and children.

The violations involved the apps’ failure to adequately prevent the creation and spread of overtly sexual material and harmful content, such as non-consensual deepfakes and manipulation of real individuals’ images, reports NBC.

Apple contacted the development teams behind both the X and Grok apps after receiving complaints and seeing news coverage of the issue, and required them to submit a concrete plan to strengthen content moderation.

Apple reviewed subsequent app submissions, determined that the X app had substantially resolved its violations, but found the initial Grok update insufficient.

As a result, Apple rejected the Grok submission and notified xAI that additional changes would be required or the app could be removed from the App Store.

Following further engagement and updates by the Grok developer, Apple approved the latest submission after determining that Grok had substantially improved its compliance.

These details were disclosed by Apple in a letter sent to U.S. senators earlier in 2026.

In response to the report, X issued a statement , via its official account.

The statement read: “We strictly prohibit users from generating non-consensual explicit deepfakes and from using our tools to undress real people. xAI has extensive safeguards in place to prevent such misuse, such as continuous monitoring of public usage, analysis of evasion attempts in real time, frequent model updates, prompt filters, and additional safeguards.”