Singapore users are flocking to Elon Musk’s Grok despite deepfake controversy
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A transit ad in London on Jan 14, organised by corporate accountability group Eko, urging the authorities to stand up to billionaire Elon Musk and ban social media platform X and chatbot Grok.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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SINGAPORE – A wave of controversy over sexually explicit artificial intelligence (AI) deepfakes has not made billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X or chatbot Grok any less popular in Singapore.
Instead, it may have done the opposite.
Since late December 2025, X has been at the centre of a storm over users creating AI-generated sexually explicit images of other users without their consent. Users could do so simply by posting a message aimed at Grok’s account on the social media platform.
In the wake of such controversy, the Grok app has shot up the charts on the Google and Apple app stores for Singapore users, according to data from analytics firm SensorTower.
On Google Play Store’s top free apps chart, Grok has been in the top 10 for most of January – a feat it last achieved in late November.
On the Apple App Store top free apps chart, Grok has hovered in the top 25 since early January, up from around the No. 100 to 130 range in October.
X continues to hover in the top 100 apps in both stores, with interest rising in the Google Play Store in January after a late December slump.
On Jan 15, X announced that it had implemented measures to prevent the Grok account on X from editing images of real people. However, such image generation features remain available on the standalone Grok app and website.
Among the most headline-grabbing incidents was American conservative influencer Ashley St Clair – who is mother to one of Mr Musk’s children – filing a lawsuit against xAI, the company that created Grok, on Jan 15. The lawsuit alleged that the company allowed users to create deepfakes of her in sexually explicit poses, including images of when she was a minor.
Indonesia and Malaysia became the first countries in the world to ban Grok over AI deepfakes earlier in January. Singapore is currently engaging with X
Under Singapore’s Code of Practice for Online Safety, X is a designated social media service that is required to curb the spread of harmful and inappropriate content on its platform, IMDA told The Straits Times on Jan 20.
Ms Ng Wi En, a PhD researcher at Nanyang Technological University studying technology-facilitated sexual violence, noted that the gender-based harm enabled by these apps often exists in a context that reframes them as entertainment or social commentary.
As it takes place digitally and anonymously, the harm caused by deepfakes can feel distant to perpetrators, she added. Coupled with the scale at which it occurs, such harm has been normalised, allowing demand to persist until public scrutiny or institutional intervention forces a response.
“An outright ban may appear decisive, but on its own is unlikely to produce lasting change,” said Dr Michelle Ho, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore’s department of communications and new media.
“Sexually explicit deepfakes are enabled by cultural assumptions about gender, consent and whose harm counts,” said Dr Ho, who noted that sustained public education and institutional engagement is necessary to shift how these technologies are understood and used today.
“This includes recognising digitally mediated sexual harm as a form of gender-based violence rather than a fringe misuse of AI,” she added.
A bus stop in London on Jan 14 displaying a protest poster calling for a boycott of billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
PHOTO: REUTERS
X and Grok drew more than 13 million and 14 million app downloads worldwide respectively in December, according to SensorTower. X and Grok were also the seventh and 59th most visited websites in Singapore in December, according to data from analytics firm Similarweb.
Mr Musk acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022 and founded xAI in 2023.
AI-generated deepfakes have been a persistent issue on X since as far back as January 2024, when the platform temporarily banned searches for American pop star Taylor Swift after users shared sexually explicit deepfake images of the celebrity.
Among Grok’s differentiating features from its larger chatbot rivals are its irreverent tone and focus on adult content. Mr Musk often promotes Grok’s companion feature for paying users, which includes an anime-style character that can engage in flirtatious conversations and change into suggestive outfits.
