Raising a huge effigy of Elon Musk over Times Square to protest Grok

In the middle In New York City’s Times Square, a giant inflatable doll of billionaire Elon Musk appeared above tourists and commuters earlier today. It was surrounded by black banners with phrases claiming “Grok makes child porn with AI” and “SpaceX owns Grok,” a reference to the Musk-owned chatbot whose image-generating tool was used to create a deluge of sexual images of minors earlier this year. Masked attendees stood nearby, distributing flyers containing additional information, but refused to speak to the media.

The demonstration was moderated by Safe AI Now (SAIN), which describes itself as a “coalition of faith leaders, family advocates, child development experts, online safety organizations, educators, legal and technology professionals, and concerned citizens,” ahead of SpaceX’s initial public offering on Friday. The location was chosen strategically, directly in front of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange and the offices of Morgan Stanley, one of the banks participating in the IPO.

SpaceX is currently valued at $1.77 trillion, making it the largest company to debut on the stock market, with a starting price of $135 per share. Although the public is able to buy shares in the company, Musk will retain a majority of the voting power, giving him the ability to make decisions for the company almost unilaterally. The IPO could also make him the world’s first trillionaire.

But a SAIN representative, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Musk, told WIRED that this structure represents a real threat to the company and is not being taken seriously by investors and banks backing the IPO.

“This IPO is a shift in responsibility,” they say. “Elon is responsible for all of this. It’s all the decisions he made. All the litigation expenses, the regulatory fines, the investigations, all of that is basically passed on to shareholders.”

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In February, Musk announced that SpaceX would buy xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Musk and developed by Grok. The announcement came at a time when xAI was facing scrutiny both in the United States and abroad over the chatbot’s ability to create nude images of women and children. In January, the European Commission announced it would investigate the company “to assess whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks” to prevent the creation of non-consensual sexual images. In March, three girls filed a class-action lawsuit against xAI because its technology was allegedly used to create nude images of them, and in January, 35 state attorneys general signed an open letter to the company, demanding that it take action to remove non-consensual sexual images and put in place guardrails to prevent the tool from doing so in the future. Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, also sued XAI for allegedly creating sexually explicit images of her.

Today, WIRED reported that Grok hosts sexually explicit, non-consensual photos of women, including US actress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and celebrities.

In a February post on X, which Musk also owns, he wrote: “Your puppy must win or we will be ruled by a woke, unbearably hypocritical AI.”

“It’s really easy to get distracted by IPO news. And I think that’s kind of what they’re hoping will happen,” the SAIN representative says. “But there’s real harm, real danger. I think if we normalize the situation everywhere — from the banks that underwrite it to the Nasdaq that lists it to the shareholders that buy into it — a company that has this really toxic platform in its puppy, and normalizes that kind of explicit image, there’s going to be a real problem.”