Zero charges for 3 million Grok deepfakes, so the women are suing SpaceX itself

The rules arrive with no one charged

From today, 30 September, platforms serving the UK must run automated systems to detect and stop illegal intimate images, on pain of fines up to 10% of global revenue ¹. The Crime and Policing Act adds a duty to remove reported images within 48 hours, under the same penalty ¹.

The measures answer Grok's Christmas run: the Center for Countering Digital Hate estimated 3 million sexualised images in eleven days, about 23,000 of them appearing to depict children ². In England and Wales, no requester has been charged ¹. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported yesterday↗ that police investigations closed after officers' information requests to X went unanswered; South Wales Police and the Metropolitan Police each said no suspect could be identified ¹.

The anonymous account behind Davies's deepfake and roughly 300 images of broadcaster Narinder Kaur is still active ¹.

The cases still alive are privately funded

Davies is in pre-action correspondence with xAI, alleging misuse of her private information and breaches of data protection law and the Equality Act ¹. The company's reply to her lawyers: it had "not been possible, in the time available, to look into any communications with South Wales Police" ¹.

Jess Asato MP filed the first UK High Court claim over Grok's non-consensual deepfakes in June↗ ¹³, then amended it in July to demand "effective and permanent technical measures" ⁴. Amsterdam's district court has already ordered xAI to stop generating non-consensual nudes in the Netherlands↗, at €100,000 a day ².

The bill lands on a Nasdaq balance sheet

SpaceX absorbed xAI and X in February and rechristened the AI arm SpaceXAI, then raised $75 billion at $135 a share in June's record IPO; the first day closed at $160.95 after touching a market value above $2.2 trillion ⁵. Alphabet's 5 to 6 per cent stake is worth about $100 billion ⁵.

Last quarter the division booked $2.56 billion of AI revenue from Grok, X and ground data centers↗ against $15.83 billion of AI capex ⁶. The IPO paperwork earmarked a reported $500 million-plus for litigation losses ⁷. SPCX closed 28 September at $145.47, inside a 52-week range of $104.83 to $225.64 ⁶.

Ofcom can fine, but most fines go unpaid

Ofcom has levied just over £7 million against 11 providers under the act, and its enforcement director told peers this month↗ that "realistically the majority have not been paid"; X sits among 40 formal investigations covering more than 100 services ⁸. The regulator also says the act's boundary around chatbots stops it reaching image creation in the standalone Grok app ¹.

Until a court or a debt collector moves, the only people paying from their own pockets to enforce the law are the women in the pictures. Asato put the stake plainly: "It doesn't matter how rich you are or how big you are, you have to abide by the law in our country" ¹.

Watch from here: whether Ofcom's open investigation of X produces anything under the rules that start today ¹, whether the £7 million already levied under the act is ever collected ⁸, and whether Asato wins the technical measures she amended her claim to seek ⁴.