Ranking Member Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaks with the media before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent testifies during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing titled “Financial Stability Oversight Council Annual Report to Congress” on Thursday, February 5, 2026, in the Dirk Sen Building.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call Inc. | Getty Images
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wants to know why the Trump administration is pressuring European allies to ease regulations to hold big tech companies accountable for enabling online child sexual exploitation.
In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Wednesday, Warren accused the trade agency of threatening countries across Europe with tariffs after launching a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s xAI and its Grok image generator. A version of Grok released last year saw millions of sexually explicit deepfakes spread online.
“The White House’s trade negotiations appear to be more focused on securing the interests of the president and his tech billionaire friends than on delivering on the new manufacturing jobs and balanced trade that the president has promised the American people,” said Warren, a member of the Senate Finance Committee and its subcommittee on trade.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) in a report on Tuesday identified X and Grok, owned by xAI, as the largest contributors to online child sexual exploitation in 2026. The organization also Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is at the top of the Dirty Dozen, a list of companies that allegedly profit from sexual exploitation.
Warren said in her letter that big tech companies have received exemptions from many of the Trump administration’s tariffs, which were first fully implemented last April and roiled markets. Meanwhile, Warren wrote that President Donald Trump has “used tariffs to bully other countries into abandoning regulations to combat Big Tech’s abuses.”
Warren is asking USTR for records showing whether there has been any contact with officials acting on behalf of Musk’s companies seeking to “oppose or weaken content moderation policies” and whether USTR officials have heard from industry executives or lobbyists on the matter.
Musk’s aerospace and defense company SpaceX recently acquired xAI. The company is expected to soon file for what could be the largest IPO in history.
Spotted: California launches investigation into xAI and Grok
