A photographer has publicly called out Elon Musk after discovering the billionaire had shared a series of his original photos on X (formerly Twitter), without credit, while appearing to imply they had been generated by his AI tool, Grok.
In a video that has since gained traction on Reddit, the specialist instrument photographer, Charles Brooks, expressed his frustration after Musk reposted images of musical instruments that were, in fact, real photographs taken by him, but were presented under the banner “Generate images with Grok AI”.
He explained: “So last weekend Elon Musk shared a bunch of my photos on X/Twitter and while that might seem really cool he did so with a title saying ‘Generate images with @Grok AI’ and that I find a little bit frustrating because as hopefully most of you know all of these instrument photos that I take are of real instruments they're not AI generated at all”.
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According to the photographer, the confusion began when a user named Eric Jiang took his original work, altered the images by inserting miniature human figures using Grok, and posted them online.
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Musk then shared these modified versions, but without any mention of the original creator.
Brooks explained further: “What seems to have happened is there's a guy called Eric Jiang he lifted my photos from somewhere and used Grok AI to put little people in them, and that's what Elon then went and shared, and then of course both of those guys shared them without credit,”.
“Elon didn't mention my name at all, and Eric did put my name in but only as a comment, not in the actual post itself, which I find a little bit disingenuous.”
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The photographer clarified that he's not opposed to people sharing his work or even modifying it, provided it’s not for commercial purposes and proper credit is given.
“If you're going to do that, please, you know, credit me, put my name in there, drop a link to the website, you know it's a really simple kind of copy and paste.”
After getting noticed on its original thread and being shared to another, the incident has sparked heated debate about responsibility and attribution, especially given Elon Musk’s vast reach. Brooks even added his X account was reportedly suspended when he complained, though it was reinstated after the matter started gaining attention, also saying that “reporters [are now] on the phone”.
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While some users argued that the onus lies solely with the person who initially reposted the photos without credit, others believe Musk holds responsibility for amplifying content with misleading framing.
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One Redditor wrote: “I do expect him to do that”, responding to another’s implied claim that you shouldn’t expect Elon Musk “to do a reverse image search on everything he replies to on Twitter”.
The responding commenter added: “When you signal boost at that degree, you have a greater responsibility. He basically has the reach of a news outlet.”
In response to one critic saying Elon’s caption wasn’t misleading, another user explained:
“No, Elon Musk clearly slapped his 'Generate images with Grok now!’ implying it's made with Grok'.
Imagine if we're on a street, there's a cool cat, and I pet the cool cat. I then say, ‘I love my cat, he always loves pets’. You'd immediately make the connection that this cool cat is my cat. Or it would be the same if I took a photo leaning on a super expensive car, saying I got a new car.
It's simply dishonest and misguides users, worse, it's done with this exact purpose”.
Brooks, for his part, ended on a balanced note, saying: “I'm not anti-AI at all... I don't use it to generate images, but I have no problem with people that do... I think there's still a place for us photographers to document real things.”
With Brooks being based in Australia, we might not quickly see big updates on this in the short term, due to the time difference. Nevertheless, we’ll be sure to have it covered if Elon himself responds.
