X announced major updates to its Terms of Service on September 9. All users must accept these new terms to continue using the app. The changes include multiple significant legal protections for X. One provision now specifies disputes go to Texas courts. This aligns with X joining SpaceX as a subsidiary. Another update clarifies user responsibility for autonomous AI actions.
However, the most controversial change involves legal rights. X now requires users to waive jury trial rights. Additionally, users forfeit the right to join class action lawsuits. Both changes apply wherever permitted by law. The new wording specifically mentions jury trial waivers. Previous terms omitted this explicit language. This represents a significant tightening of legal protections.
As it states on the updated page:
“Class action and jury trial waiver: Where permitted by law, we’ve updated our Terms to state that you and X waive the right to a jury trial, and, as in our prior Terms, you and X waive the right to bring or join a class, collective, or other representative action against the other. This applies to all users and, to the extent permitted by law, also covers our corporate affiliates.”
X currently faces a major class action lawsuit filed in September 2026. Three Tennessee-based plaintiffs, identified as Jane Does, allege Grok generated sexual abuse material depicting them as minors. One survivor claims xAI generated over 7,000 sexual images from a photograph taken when she was 11 years old. Plaintiffs allege xAI trained Grok on existing child sexual abuse material. The complaint further states Grok created new illegal content using that training data. Some allegations suggest Grok training used the plaintiffs’ own abuse imagery. This compounds the trauma survivors already experienced.
The lawsuit filed documents at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint names Elon Musk personally as a defendant. It alleges xAI deliberately designed Grok to generate sexually explicit content. The complaint states xAI deliberately restricted image features to paid subscribers rather than fixing guardrails. Grok generated approximately 3 million sexualized images during a 12-day period in December 2025 to January 2026. More than 23,000 of those images depicted children according to research by the Center for Counter Digital Hate.
Regulatory agencies now scrutinize the provision’s enforceability. The FTC has authority to evaluate whether class action waivers constitute unfair or deceptive practices. California state attorneys general may challenge the waiver under state consumer protection law. EU and UK users face additional protections under national consumer law. EU Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair contract terms may render waivers unenforceable. Courts in multiple jurisdictions have previously questioned enforceability of such clauses.
xAI itself maintains similar jury trial waivers in enterprise terms. The company took down 52,222 Grok accounts in 2026. xAI submitted 73,604 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Those submissions contributed to at least 244 arrests according to xAI statements. Paradoxically, xAI also sued South Carolina resident Terry Wayne Harwood in Texas federal court for using Grok to generate CSAM. He allegedly ran multiple accounts under false identities.
Individual arbitration becomes mandatory for all disputes, which means lacking legal resources for expensive arbitration proceedings might not work out for everyone, and international disputes with X will become costlier to pursue. This also means that Pakistani courts cannot resolve X disputes directly anymore. So, all in all, this arrangement heavily favors large platforms over individual users.
