Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has clarified his statements regarding X’s AI generation of nonconsensual sexual images of minors and women, saying he merely “criticized a government official” for pressuring publicly traded companies for attempting to “block a speech app owned by their political opponent.”
Right around the January 9 weekend, news broke that X users were turning to Grok, the platform’s AI tool, to create images of minors and women in sexually compromising outfits and positions. The situation drew the attention of US Senators Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Edward Markey (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), who wrote a letter to Apple and Google requesting that the companies remove the Grok and X apps from their app stores for the “mass generation of nonconsensual sexualized images of women and children.” The senators have asked for a written response from both companies by January 23.
In response to the letter, which MacRumors reported and shared on X, Tim Sweeney quoted the post on January 9 and said that senators using their political power to remove these apps for the harm they have caused are “gatekeepers” who are trying to “censor all of their political opponents.” He continued in a follow-up post, explaining that no major AI company is “perfect” because they all have “documented instances of [their tech] going off the rails” and that these companies “make their best efforts to combat this.” These comments blew up, drawing criticism from some corners of Elon Musk’s social platform and praise from others.
After PC Gamer ran a story on January 11 criticizing Sweeney for what it described as a defense of “an unprecedented online sexual humiliation machine,” Sweeney responded to the outlet’s reporting, calling the story a “vile lie” that misconstrued his statements.
This is a vile lie by PC Gamer. I criticized a government official for pressuring Apple and Google to block a speech app owned by their political opponent, deplatforming 500,000,000 users on the pretense of stopping a small number of users from distributing disgusting content.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 11, 2026
Tech enthusiast and Autohive CEO John-Daniel Trask replied to Sweeney’s post, thanking him for “speaking up on this issue” because it’s somehow a “power play.” Sweeney responded, suggesting there might be “some group chat somewhere” of people plotting who to attack, when to attack, and why to attack. He believes that the story PC Gamer ran was an “absolutely disgusting disregard for the truth and for editorial practices.”
GameSpot reached out to Epic for comment but has not yet received one.
While Sweeney appears frustrated with PC Gamer’s framing of his comments, he also clarified that X’s Grok generating child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other nonconsensual sexually exploitative images is “bad.” He also reiterated his position that “every significant AI has instances of this” and that companies “make their best efforts to stop it,” but all are “imperfect.”
1) That is bad.
2) Every significant AI has instances of this.
3) Every significant AI company makes their best efforts to stop it.
4) All are imperfect.
Thus the combined danger of selective enforcement against political opponents, and distribution monopolies.— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 9, 2026
According to the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN), CSAM (pronounced “see-sam”) refers to “any visual content–photos, videos, livestreams, or AI-generated images–that shows a child being sexually abused or exploited.” RAINN clarifies that CSAM is not child pornography but evidence of “child sexual abuse–and it’s a crime to create, distribute, or possess.”