Apple threatened to remove Elon Musk's Grok AI app from its App Store in January over unmoderated sexual deepfakes on X, but took no public action.

Apple sent a private letter to US senators confirming it threatened to ban Grok from the App Store due to nonconsensual sexual deepfakes proliferating on X

Apple demanded that X and Grok teams create a plan to improve content moderation after receiving complaints and seeing news coverage of the deepfake crisis

The threat was made quietly behind closed doors while public criticism mounted over Apple's lack of transparency and perceived inaction on the issue

The incident highlights the tension between Apple's role as a powerful app store gatekeeper and its reluctance to publicly enforce its policies against major tech companies