xAI raised $20 billion, generated 1.2 billion videos in January alone, and is now facing lawsuits over sexualized AI images. The growth and the problems are both accelerating.
Elon Musk's xAI is moving faster than almost any AI company in history. Whether that's admirable or terrifying depends on which part of the story you're reading.
The numbers first. Grok now has approximately 600 million monthly active users across X and the standalone Grok app. The company just closed a $20 billion Series E funding round — upsized from the originally targeted $15 billion because demand was that strong. Grok Imagine, the platform's image and video generation tool, produced 1.245 billion videos in January 2026 alone. That's not a typo. Billion. In one month.
March brought a wave of product updates. Grok Imagine got an "Extend from Frame" feature that lets users chain video clips together using the final frame as a starting point, enabling sequences up to 15 seconds per clip. Grok Voice Mode opened its text-to-speech API to developers. Enterprise tiers launched with SSO, SCIM provisioning, and Vault encryption. On the API side, provisioned throughput now guarantees predictable performance for high-volume customers.
“Grok Imagine got an "Extend from Frame" feature that lets users chain video clips together using the final frame as a starting point, enabling sequences up to 15 seconds per clip.”
Then there are the parts of the story that aren't in any press release.
Key Takeaways
→Grok: Grok has approximately 600 million monthly active users across X and the standalone Grok app as of March 2026.
→xAI: Grok has approximately 600 million monthly active users across X and the standalone Grok app as of March 2026.
→AI: Grok has approximately 600 million monthly active users across X and the standalone Grok app as of March 2026.
→Elon Musk: Grok has approximately 600 million monthly active users across X and the standalone Grok app as of March 2026.
A New York Times review found that Grok generated over 4.4 million images in a nine-day period, and 1.8 million of them were sexualized depictions of women. A new lawsuit filed in March joined two others focused on nonconsensual explicit images allegedly created by the platform. Women and girls are taking the company to court over AI-generated deepfakes that use their likenesses without consent.
On the government side, the Pentagon adopted Grok into sensitive defense systems — a decision that prompted Senator Elizabeth Warren to demand information from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about xAI's access to classified networks. The concerns are straightforward: should a company controlled by one of the most politically active billionaires in the world have access to classified military infrastructure?
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Meanwhile, xAI is hiring Wall Street bankers and credit analysts to train Grok in financial strategy, signaling ambitions well beyond consumer chatbot territory.
Senator Warren's letter to Hegseth stated plainly that "the integration of a commercially controlled AI platform into sensitive defense systems, without congressional oversight, represents a novel and unacceptable risk." The Defense Department has not publicly responded.
The company is growing at a pace that makes oversight inherently difficult. The question is not whether Grok is powerful — that is settled. The question is whether the legal and political frameworks governing its use can keep pace with a product that went from launch to 600 million users in under three years and generated more than a billion videos in a single month.
Grok has approximately 600 million monthly active users across X and the standalone Grok app as of March 2026.
Is Grok being used by the Pentagon?
Yes, the Pentagon adopted Grok into sensitive defense systems, prompting Senator Elizabeth Warren to demand information about xAI's access to classified military networks.
What is the Grok deepfake lawsuit about?
Multiple lawsuits allege that Grok Imagine generated nonconsensual explicit images using real women and girls' likenesses, with a New York Times review finding 1.8 million sexualized images of women created in just nine days.
