Calls for a Grok ban are escalating in Washington. A coalition of nonprofit advocacy groups is urging the US government to immediately suspend the use of Grok—the AI chatbot developed by xAI—across federal agencies, including the Department of Defense.
The demand comes via an open letter shared with TechCrunch, following renewed concerns about Grok’s behavior. Most recently, users on X reportedly prompted Grok to generate sexualized images of real women—and in some cases children—without consent, distributing the content at scale.
Why Advocates Are Calling for a Grok Ban
According to the coalition, Grok’s failures go beyond isolated incidents. Reports claim the system produced thousands of nonconsensual explicit images per hour, raising alarms about systemic safeguards.
“It is deeply concerning that the federal government would continue to deploy an AI product with system-level failures,” the letter states, citing risks of nonconsensual sexual imagery and child sexual abuse material.
The letter is signed by organizations including Public Citizen, Center for AI and Digital Policy, and Consumer Federation of America. The groups argue that under current federal guidance, AI systems presenting severe and foreseeable risks should be discontinued—fueling their call for a Grok ban.
Also Read: Indonesia Permits Grok AI to Resume Service After Ban
Grok’s Federal Footprint Raises Security Concerns
Despite the controversies, Grok has expanded its federal reach. Last September, xAI signed an agreement with the General Services Administration to sell Grok to executive-branch agencies. Earlier, xAI—alongside Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI—secured a Department of Defense contract worth up to $200 million.
In January, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed Grok would operate inside the Pentagon network, handling both classified and unclassified documents—an announcement that intensified Grok ban demands from security experts.
Experts Warn Grok Is Unsafe by Design
JB Branch, a Big Tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen, said Grok has shown a consistent pattern of unsafe behavior, including anti-Semitic and sexist outputs.
“If you know a large language model has been declared unsafe by AI safety experts, why would you want it handling the most sensitive data we have?” Branch asked.
Former NSA contractor Andrew Christianson, now founder of Gobbi AI, warned that closed-source AI systems like Grok pose inherent risks.
“Closed weights and closed code mean you can’t audit how decisions are made,” Christianson said. “For national security, that’s the worst possible combination.”
Global Scrutiny Adds Momentum to Grok Ban Calls
International regulators have also taken notice. Countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines temporarily blocked Grok earlier this year, while the European Union, the UK, South Korea, and India are investigating xAI and X over data privacy and illegal content distribution.
Separately, Common Sense Media released a risk assessment ranking Grok among the least safe AI tools for children and teens—citing violent imagery, sexual content, conspiracy theories, and biased outputs.
What the Coalition Wants Next
Beyond an immediate Grok ban across federal agencies, the coalition is calling on the Office of Management and Budget to formally investigate Grok’s safety failures and publicly clarify whether it complies with executive orders requiring AI systems to be neutral and truth-seeking.
“The administration needs to take a pause,” Branch said, “and reassess whether Grok meets those thresholds.”
This marks the coalition’s third formal warning after similar letters last August and October—suggesting pressure for a Grok ban is unlikely to fade anytime soon.
Don’t miss out on our latest news—follow us for the latest AI news, breakthroughs, and insights that matter.