US State Department threatens UK over probe into Elon Musk’s X

LONDON — The U.S. Department of State’s Sarah B. Rogers says “nothing is off the table” if the U.K. government makes good on its threat to ban Elon Musk’s X over concerns about a deluge of AI-generated sexualized deepfakes on the platform.

“I would say from America’s perspective … nothing is off the table when it comes to free speech,” Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, told GB News in an interview which aired in the U.K. in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

“Let’s wait and see what Ofcom does and we’ll see what America does in response,” she added.

Rogers, an appointee of President Donald Trump, has repeatedly criticized European efforts to crack down on hate speech. She was involved in last month’s State Department decision to sanction former European Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other European nationals involved in efforts to curb the spread of disinformation.

At least one lawmaker aligned with Trump has also weighed in on behalf of the Elon Musk-owned platform. U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, said last week she was drafting legislation to sanction the U.K. if X is banned in the country.

In her GB News interview Rogers accused the British government of wanting “the ability to curate a public square, to suppress political viewpoints it dislikes.”

X has a “political valence that the British government is antagonistic to, doesn’t like, and that’s what’s really going on,” she added.

Asked whether Rogers’ remarks accurately represent the Trump administration’s stance on the issue, a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in London said: “Her remarks speak for themselves.”

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson denied the case was about freedom of expression, insisting the U.K. had upheld freedom of speech “for many hundreds of years, and will do in future too.”

“It’s about the generation of criminal imagery of children and women and girls that is not acceptable. We cannot stand by and let that continue. And that is why we’ve taken the action we have.”

Ofcom, the U.K.’s online safety watchdog, is currently investigating whether X failed to comply with its duties under the Online Safety Act by allowing its Grok AI chatbot to create and distribute non-consensual intimate images, including potential child sexual abuse material.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told the House of Commons on Monday that Ofcom has the government’s backing to use the full extent of its powers, which include imposing financial penalties of up to £18 million or 10 percent of a company’s worldwide revenue, and in the most serious cases seeking a court order to block X from functioning in the U.K.

“This is not, as some would claim, about restricting freedom of speech, which is something that I and the whole Government hold very dear. It is about tackling violence against women and girls. It is about upholding basic British values of decency and respect, and ensuring that the standards that we expect offline are upheld online. It is about exercising our sovereign power and responsibility to uphold the laws of this land,” she said.

At a behind-closed-doors meeting with Labour lawmakers on Monday Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “If X cannot control Grok, we will — and we’ll do it fast because if you profit from harm and abuse, you lose the right to self regulate.”

POLITICO reported last week that Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy raised the issue of Grok with Vice President Vance, and Lammy later told The Guardian that Vance had agreed the deepfaked images spreading on X were “unacceptable.”

Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting

This story has been updated to include comments from the U.S. embassy in London, and Keir Starmer’s spokesperson.