The soap opera that is Elon Musk’s personal life has taken a predictably Black Mirror turn. Ashley St. Clair, Elon’s most recent baby mama (to Cockburn’s knowledge), started complaining on X last week that people were using Grok, X’s AI tool, to create unauthorized sexually explicit images of her, including “Photos of me of 14 years old, undressed and put in a bikini.”
Over the weekend, Musk wrote, “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.” But St. Clair claims the images are still being manufactured.
Democratic politicians petitioned Apple and Google to remove X and Grok from their app stores over the debacle. Across the pond, Prime Minister Keir Starmer might use Grok’s stripping of teens as a premise to ban X entirely in the UK, saying these CSAMs (child-abuse sexual material) are “disgusting and not to be tolerated.”
Musk has now limited Grok’s image-making tools to paying customers. But those customers don’t include St. Clair – who woke up a few days ago to find that X had removed her blue checkmark and her Twitter Premium account, which means that she can’t generate revenue from her more than 1 million followers. What a revolting mess. “Hey guys im starting to think the $44 billion wasn’t for free speech,” St. Clair posted. And then this morning she wrote, “shoutout to the uk, sorry about 1776 u guys may have been right after all.”
This tawdry episode is enough to turn off Cockburn from X for good. In the meantime, if someone tries to deepfake into a dental-floss bikini, there’s going to be hell to pay.
On our radar
IRAN OFFLINE Iranian authorities have shut down the internet as protests rage against the Islamic Republic’s regime.
ICE SHOOTING Minnesota outlet Alpha News has just released point-of-view footage from the federal agent who shot Renee Good in Minneapolis as she attempted to evade ICE.
OH NOEM Congresswoman Robin Kelly of Illinois, a Democrat, announced plans to file three articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
Greene room
Team Trump is set on making their “Marjorie Traitor Greene” moniker stick. “The White House told the Secret Service that Greene may have tipped off Code Pink protesters about his surprise visit last fall to a DC restaurant she recommended,” two Trump staffers briefed to Axios. The pro-Palestine protesters were filmed heckling the President at Joe’s on 15th St NW, around the corner from the White House. The restaurant is a popular haunt for members of Congress, cabinet secretaries and other DC hoi polloi. Greene – who posed for an engagement photo at the restaurant – was vociferous in her denial, branding it an “absurd dangerous LIE” in a lengthy X post:
“Code Pink was in the restaurant because the WH and Secret Service did NOT sweep Joe’s, did NOT set up metal detectors and check everyone in the restaurant, and did not do any of their normal security protocols that they do at every public event he attends!!! Only the WH set up President Trump’s reservation at Joe’s, NOT ME!! I had ZERO knowledge of when his reservation was! The only people who could have tipped off Code Pink was the restaurant or the WH!”
“I’ll be calling my attorney,” Greene continued. “This is an ABSOLUTE LIE, A DANGEROUS LIE. I would NEVER do that.”
Playbook on show
A revealing blunder from DC’s onetime flagship morning email Politico Playbook: Sean Spicer notes that the newsletter inadvertently linked readers to its blueprint document this morning, showing which sources Playbook editors check to put together each edition. Spicer points out that Playbook’s conservative news diet is rather light – “no @BreitbartNews @DailyCaller @DailySignal @realDailyWire,” he tweeted.
Cockburn can’t help but agree: if the most right-wing outlets you read are the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, Drudge Report, National Review and the Washington Post Opinion page, how can you hope to understand Trump’s Washington, let alone the rest of the country?
Cockburn would be happy to offer the Playbook editors a free subscription if they get in touch – and to direct readers toward a more balanced morning newsletter, coming Monday…
Subscribe to Cockburn’s Diary on Substack to get it in your inbox on Tuesdays and Fridays.
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