Massive Effigy of Elon Musk Raised Over Times Square to Protest Grok

A massive inflatable effigy of Elon Musk was raised in Times Square today by the coalition Safe AI Now to protest Grok, the Musk-owned AI chatbot whose image-generation tool has been used to create sexualized images of minors. The demonstration, held ahead of SpaceX's initial public offering on Friday, targeted the Nasdaq and JP Morgan offices to highlight concerns that the IPO shifts liability for Musk's decisions onto shareholders. SpaceX, valued at $1.77 trillion, faces scrutiny as the IPO could make Musk the world's first trillionaire while the company confronts investigations and lawsuits over Grok's generation of nonconsensual sexual imagery.

In the middle of New York City’s Times Square, a massive, inflatable effigy of billionaire Elon Musk https://www.wired.com/tag/elon-musk/ towered over tourists and commuters earlier today. It was surrounded by black banners with statements alleging “Grok makes AI child porn” and “SpaceX owns Grok,” referring to the Musk-owned AI chatbot https://www.wired.com/story/grok-is-still-hosting-sexualized-deepfakes-of-famous-women/ whose image-generation tool https://www.wired.com/story/grok-is-pushing-ai-undressing-mainstream/ was used to create a flood of sexualized images of minors https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg1mzlryxeo earlier this year. Masked attendants stood nearby, handing out flyers with additional information, but they would not speak with the media. The demonstration was helmed by Safe AI Now SAIN , which describes itself as “a coalition of faith leaders, family advocates, child development experts, online safety organizations, educators, legal professionals, technologists, and concerned citizens,” ahead of SpaceX’s initial public offering on Friday. The location was strategically chosen—right in front of the Nasdaq and the offices of JP Morgan, one of the banks participating in the IPO https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/jpmorgan-mobilizes-2-500-clients-172936665.html?guccounter=1&guce referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce referrer sig=AQAAAIiows3t3MsK1lU7HIpyNjkQ8ejwHgWVJheWFpnvVacLJaUgJL5wb25sIoSph8Zxbq8tojcanpTYspQYsK Ilv35fqm3bdiOsV9JtVZIx1RLlIOoE2KiZQIHPdQ1P2XrwsSX1UfqAoW4mZcYpBpNrKIpOHruFx0Mo1S6SRAjQLD6 . SpaceX is currently valued at $1.77 trillion https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/business/spacex-ipo-what-to-know.html , making it the largest company ever to debut on the stock market, with a starting price of $135 per share. Though the public is able to buy shares in the company, Musk will retain the majority of voting power, giving him the ability to almost unilaterally make decisions for the company. The IPO could also make him the world’s first trillionaire https://www.wsj.com/articles/musk-spacex-ipo-retail-traders-a13e9030 . But a SAIN representative, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Musk, told WIRED that this structure represents a real threat to the company that investors and banks backing the IPO are not taking seriously. “This IPO is a liability shift,” they say. “Elon is responsible for all of this. It's all the decisions that he's made. All of those litigation expenses, regulatory fines, investigations, all of that is basically being shifted to the shareholders.” SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In February, Musk announced that SpaceX was buying xAI https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-acquires-xai-elon-musk/ , the artificial intelligence company Musk founded and the developer of Grok. The announcement came just as xAI was facing scrutiny both in the US and abroad for the chatbot’s ability to generate nude photos of women and children. In January, the European Commission announced it would be investigating the company https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/26/eu-launches-inquiry-into-x-over-sexually-explicit-images-made-by-grok-ai to “assess whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks” to prevent the creation of nonconsensual sexual imagery. In March, three girls filed a class action lawsuit against https://19thnews.org/2026/03/women-girls-lawsuit-grok-ai-deepfakes/ xAI because its technology was allegedly used to generate nudes of them, and in January, 35 state attorneys general https://www.wired.com/story/the-state-led-crackdown-on-grok-and-xai-has-begun/?utm campaign=aud-dev&utm brand=wired&utm social-type=owned&utm source=linkedin&utm medium=social signed an open letter https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/AI%20Task%20Force/Letter%20to%20xAI FINAL.pdf?VersionId=qmtDkSKNgA65D9INm.JOdOEiRzl12IdH to the company, demanding that it take action to remove nonconsensual sexual imagery and put guardrails in place to prevent the tool from doing so in the future. Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, also filed suit https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ashley-st-clair-sues-xai-grok-sexual-images-rcna254302 against xAI for allegedly creating sexually explicit images of her. Today, WIRED reported that Grok is hosting nonconsensual, explicit sexualized images of women https://www.wired.com/story/grok-is-still-hosting-sexualized-deepfakes-of-famous-women/ , including US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and celebrities. In a February post on X https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2024043139845988598 , which Musk also owns, he wrote that “Grok must win or we will be ruled by an insufferably woke and sanctimonious AI.” “It's really easy to get distracted by the shiny IPO news. And I think that's what they're kind of hoping will happen,” the SAIN representative says. “But there's real harm, real risk. I think if we are normalizing everywhere—from the banks that are underwriting it to the NASDAQ that's listing it to the shareholders who are buying into it—a company that has this really toxic platform in Grok, normalizing that type of explicit imagery, there’s a real problem.” Most people passing by seemed unfazed by the massive, shirtless image of Musk, which sported a shoulder tattoo shaped like a heart and reading “ketamine” and another showing an image of the billionaire’s Nazi-like salute https://www.wired.com/story/neo-nazis-love-elon-musk-nazi-like-salutes-trumps-inauguration/ shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2025, with a few stopping to take photos before moving on. One man stood in front of the effigy, his hands turned up and his thumb and forefingers shaped like pincers, posing for a photo. When asked if he was a fan of Musk’s, he replied that he didn’t really care but that he was trying to make it look like he was grabbing the fake Musk’s nipples. “It is very bombastic on purpose to draw attention to this really important issue,” says the SAIN representative.