Elon Musk has shared a post containing a photographer’s specialist images and passed them as AI-generated to advertise X’s AI image generator Grok.
To add insult to injury, photographer Charles Brooks says his X account was then restricted after he responded to some of the comments underneath Elon Musk’s post.
Brooks’ takes unique photos of the inside of musical instruments and is the only photographer in the world to have ever captured the inside of an intact violin. It was these photos that were posted by Eric Jiang but edited so that people were inside of them. Musk then shared Jiang’s post with the caption, “Generate images with Grok” — implying that the images were created by X’s AI image generator Grok.
Generate images with @Grok https://t.co/5Ibx8eArx0
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2025
“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,” Brooks says on Instagram. “They’re not AI-generated at all.”
Brooks believes that Jiang lifted his photos and used Grok to composite people into his photos. “That’s what Elon then went and shared,” notes Brooks.
Both Musk and Jiang shared Brooks’ photos without credit, although Jiang did credit Brooks in a subsequent comment underneath which Brooks says he finds “disingenuous.”
“I’m not against people sharing my images,” Brooks says on social media. “I love that you guys enjoy these images and want to share them with your friends.”
Brooks says he doesn’t even mind people editing his images but thinks a visible credit is the right thing to do. “Put my name in there, drop a link to my website, it’s really simple,” he adds.
Musk shared Brooks’ images to his 220 million followers on the platform that he owns without credit and with the Grok watermark logo on instead.
To make matters worse, Brooks says his X account was then restricted when he responded to comments that said his images were AI-generated.
AI and Photography
Brooks says he has no issue with AI but rightly points out that image generators can only produce pictures similar to ones that have been included in its training data. In fact, when Grok users asked it to generate an image of the inside of an instrument, they were left disappointed as seen below.
I want my money back. pic.twitter.com/ilzUSfJN7I
— Satan (@CEOatHell) June 1, 2025
AI can’t generate the inside of a musical instrument because there are so few photos of the inside of instruments. “It will never be able to generate an image of a specific instrument,” he explains. “For that, you’re always going to need a photographer. So, I still think there’s a place for us.”
PetaPixel recently featured Brooks’ work after he captured the inside of a particle accelerator. More of Brooks’ work can be found on his website and Instagram.
