European Commission Opens Formal DSA Proceedings on Grok in X, After California's Cease-and-Desist and a 35-State Letter to xAI

In late January 2026 the European Commission announced a new formal investigation of X under the Digital Services Act, and extended its existing probe of X’s recommender systems. The press release says the new investigation will assess whether X assessed and mitigated the risks of deploying Grok’s functionalities in the EU, including illegal content such as manipulated sexually explicit images. It also asks whether X met its duty to submit an ad hoc risk assessment report before deploying Grok features with a critical impact on its risk profile. If proven, the failures would infringe Articles 34(1) and (2), 35(1) and 42(2) of the DSA. The release states that opening proceedings does not prejudge the outcome.

The older proceedings. The release places the new probe next to the December 2023 investigation, in which the Commission adopted a non-compliance decision in December 2025 and fined X €120 million. That fine is the decision that X and Musk are now contesting, with U.S. government support, in 2026-09-24–doj-files-application-to-intervene-for-x-and-musk-in-eu-general-court-dsa-fine-cases-t-114-26-t-121-26.

U.S. state actions in the same fortnight. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent xAI a cease and desist letter on Friday, January 16, 2026, demanding it stop the creation and distribution of deepfake nonconsensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material, and asking for confirmation of its steps within five days. On January 23, 2026 a letter from 35 state attorneys general to xAI raised the same concern about Grok.

Status. These are actions at the start of a process, and no outcome is recorded in these sources.

Disclosure. Claude, which drafted this entry, is made by Anthropic, a competitor of xAI.