Britain has evacuated its ambassador and all embassy staff from Iran, a U.K. official said Wednesday, as U.S. President Donald Trump weighs launching strikes against the Islamist regime. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the decision had been taken based on the assessment of the security situation and to prioritize the safety of staff. A U.K. government spokesperson said: “We have temporarily closed the British Embassy in Tehran, this will now operate remotely.  “Foreign Office travel advice has now been updated to reflect this consular change.” The move came shortly after the U.S. ordered the evacuation of some personnel from the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, its largest base in the Middle East, which hosts 10,000 U.S. troops. A former U.S. official familiar with the situation said aircraft had also been moved. Reuters first reported the evacuation. The U.K. already advises against all travel to Iran and for British nationals already in the country to “carefully consider” their continued presence. Britain’s envoy to Iran was summoned alongside European diplomats on Monday to a fractious meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, European officials said. In turn, Britain’s Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer summoned Iran’s Ambassador to London for a meeting Tuesday. Speaking to POLITICO on a tour of Finland and Norway — before the evacuation was public — U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper praised Tehran’s “brave protesters, especially for women to be out protesting, who are facing such huge repression in their daily lives.” With some protesters facing execution, she said: “Iran needs to understand the whole world is watching, and they need to end this violence. The idea that they would escalate the violence further with these executions is absolutely horrific.” Cooper said her priority was sanctions and economic pressure on Iran rather than military strikes. However, she did not rule out allowing the U.S. to use British resources, including air bases, to launch such strikes.

BRUSSELS — Elon Musk has denied that X’s artificial intelligence tool Grok generates illegal content in the wake of AI-generated undressed and sexualized images on the platform. In a fresh post Wednesday, X’s powerful owner sought to argue that users — not the AI tool — are responsible and that the platform is fully compliant with all laws. “I[‘m] not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok,” he said. “Literally zero.” “When asked to generate images, [Grok] will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state,” he added. “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.” Musk’s remarks follow heightened scrutiny by both the EU and the U.K., with Brussels describing the appearance of nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes on X as “illegal,” “appalling” and “disgusting.” The U.K.’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, said Monday that it had launched an investigation into X. On Wednesday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the platform is “acting to ensure full compliance” with the relevant law but said the government won’t “back down.” The EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen warned Monday that X should quickly “fix” its AI tool, or the platform would face consequences under the bloc’s platform law, the Digital Services Act. The Commission last week ordered X to retain all of Grok’s data and documents until the end of the year. Just 11 days ago, Musk said that “anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content” in response to a post about the inappropriate images. The company’s safety team posted a similar line, warning that it takes action against illegal activity, including child sexual abuse material.

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. The U.S. embassy in London did not immediately respond when contacted by POLITICO for comment. 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.”

LONDON — Reza Pahlavi was in the United States as a student in 1979 when his father, the last shah of Iran, was toppled in a revolution. He has not set foot inside Iran since, though his monarchist supporters have never stopped believing that one day their “crown prince” will return.  As anti-regime demonstrations fill the streets of more than 100 towns and cities across the country of 90 million people, despite an internet blackout and an increasingly brutal crackdown, that day may just be nearing.   Pahlavi’s name is on the lips of many protesters, who chant that they want the “shah” back. Even his critics — and there are plenty who oppose a return of the monarchy — now concede that Pahlavi may prove to be the only figure with the profile required to oversee a transition.  The global implications of the end of the Islamic Republic and its replacement with a pro-Western democratic government would be profound, touching everything from the Gaza crisis to the wars in Ukraine and Yemen, to the oil market.  Over the course of three interviews in the past 12 months in London, Paris and online, Pahlavi told POLITICO how Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be overthrown. He set out the steps needed to end half a century of religious dictatorship and outlined his own proposal to lead a transition to secular democracy. Nothing is guaranteed, and even Pahlavi’s team cannot be sure that this current wave of protests will take down the regime, never mind bring him to power. But if it does, the following is an account of Pahlavi’s roadmap for revolution and his blueprint for a democratic future.  POPULAR UPRISING  Pahlavi argues that change needs to be driven from inside Iran, and in his interview with POLITICO last February he made it clear he wanted foreign powers to focus on supporting Iranians to move against their rulers rather than intervening militarily from the outside.  “People are already on the streets with no help. The economic situation is to a point where our currency devaluation, salaries can’t be paid, people can’t even afford a kilo of potatoes, never mind meat,” he said. “We need more and more sustained protests.” Over the past two weeks, the spiraling cost of living and economic mismanagement have indeed helped fuel the protest wave. The biggest rallies in years have filled the streets, despite attempts by the authorities to intimidate opponents through violence and by cutting off communications. Pahlavi has sought to encourage foreign financial support for workers who will disrupt the state by going on strike. He also called for more Starlink internet terminals to be shipped into Iran, in defiance of a ban, to make it harder for the regime to stop dissidents from communicating and coordinating their opposition. Amid the latest internet shutdowns, Starlink has provided the opposition movements with a vital lifeline. As the protests gathered pace last week, Pahlavi stepped up his own stream of social media posts and videos, which gain many millions of views, encouraging people onto the streets. He started by calling for demonstrations to begin at 8 p.m. local time, then urged protesters to start earlier and occupy city centers for longer. His supporters say these appeals are helping steer the protest movement. Reza Pahlavi argues that change needs to be driven from inside Iran. | Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA The security forces have brutally crushed many of these gatherings. The Norway-based Iranian Human Rights group puts the number of dead at 648, while estimating that more than 10,000 people have been arrested. It’s almost impossible to know how widely Pahlavi’s message is permeating nationwide, but footage inside Iran suggests the exiled prince’s words are gaining some traction with demonstrators, with increasing images of the pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flag appearing at protests, and crowds chanting “javid shah” — the eternal shah. DEFECTORS Understandably, given his family history, Pahlavi has made a study of revolutions and draws on the collapse of the Soviet Union to understand how the Islamic Republic can be overthrown. In Romania and Czechoslovakia, he said, what was required to end Communism was ultimately “maximum defections” among people inside the ruling elites, military and security services who did not want to “go down with the sinking ship.”  “I don’t think there will ever be a successful civil disobedience movement without the tacit collaboration or non-intervention of the military,” he said during an interview last February.  There are multiple layers to Iran’s machinery of repression, including the hated Basij militia, but the most powerful and feared part of its security apparatus is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Pahlavi argued that top IRGC commanders who are “lining their pockets” — and would remain loyal to Khamenei — did not represent the bulk of the organization’s operatives, many of whom “can’t pay rent and have to take a second job at the end of their shift.”  “They’re ultimately at some point contemplating their children are in the streets protesting … and resisting the regime. And it’s their children they’re called on to shoot. How long is that tenable?” Pahlavi’s offer to those defecting is that they will be granted an amnesty once the regime has fallen. He argues that most of the people currently working in the government and military will need to remain in their roles to provide stability once Khamenei has been thrown out, in order to avoid hollowing out the administration and creating a vacuum — as happened after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.  Only the hardline officials at the top of the regime in Tehran should expect to face punishment.  In June, Pahlavi announced he and his team were setting up a secure portal for defectors to register their support for overthrowing the regime, offering an amnesty to those who sign up and help support a popular uprising. By July, he told POLITICO, 50,000 apparent regime defectors had used the system.  His team are now wary of making claims regarding the total number of defectors, beyond saying “tens of thousands” have registered. These have to be verified, and any regime trolls or spies rooted out. But Pahlavi’s allies say a large number of new defectors made contact via the portal as the protests gathered pace in recent days.  REGIME CHANGE In his conversations with POLITICO last year, Pahlavi insisted he didn’t want the United States or Israel to get involved directly and drive out the supreme leader and his lieutenants. He always said the regime would be destroyed by a combination of fracturing from within and pressure from popular unrest.  He’s also been critical of the reluctance of European governments to challenge the regime and of their preference to continue diplomatic efforts, which he has described as appeasement. European powers, especially France, Germany and the U.K., have historically had a significant role in managing the West’s relations with Iran, notably in designing the 2015 nuclear deal that sought to limit Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.  But Pahlavi’s allies want more support and vocal condemnation from Europe. U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in his first term and wasted little time on diplomacy in his second. He ordered American military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, as part of Israel’s 12-day war, action that many analysts and Pahlavi’s team agree leaves the clerical elite and its vast security apparatus weaker than ever.  U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in his first term and wasted little time on diplomacy in his second. | Pool photo by Bonnie Cash via EPA Pahlavi remains in close contact with members of the Trump administration, as well as other governments including in Germany, France and the U.K. He has met U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio several times and said he regards him as “the most astute and understanding” holder of that office when it comes to Iran since the 1979 revolution.  In recent days Trump has escalated his threats to intervene, including potentially through more military action if Iran’s rulers continue their crackdown and kill large numbers of protesters.  On the weekend Pahlavi urged Trump to follow through. “Mr President,” he posted on X Sunday. “Your words of solidarity have given Iranians the strength to fight for freedom,” he said. “Help them liberate themselves and Make Iran Great Again!” THE CARETAKER KING  In June Pahlavi announced he was ready to replace Khamenei’s administration to lead the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.   “Once the regime collapses, we have to have a transitional government as quickly as possible,” he told POLITICO last year. He proposed that a constitutional conference should be held among Iranian representatives to devise a new settlement, to be ratified by the people in a referendum.  The day after that referendum is held, he told POLITICO in February, “that’s the end of my mission in life.”  Asked if he wanted to see a monarchy restored, he said in June: “Democratic options should be on the table. I’m not going to be the one to decide that. My role however is to make sure that no voice is left behind. That all opinions should have the chance to argue their case — it doesn’t matter if they are republicans or monarchists, it doesn’t matter if they’re on the left of center or the right.”  One option he hasn’t apparently excluded might be to restore a permanent monarchy, with a democratically elected government serving in his name.  Pahlavi says he has three clear principles for establishing a new democracy: protecting Iran’s territorial integrity; a secular democratic system that separates religion from the government; and “every principle of human rights incorporated into our laws.” He confirmed to POLITICO that this would include equality and protection against discrimination for all citizens, regardless of their sexual or religious orientation.  COME-BACK CAPITALISM  Over the past year, Pahlavi has been touring Western capitals meeting politicians as well as senior business figures and investors from the world of banking and finance. Iran is a major OPEC oil producer and has the second biggest reserves of natural gas in the world, “which could supply Europe for a long time to come,” he said.  “Iran is the most untapped reserve for foreign investment,” Pahlavi said in February. “If Silicon Valley was to commit for a $100 billion investment, you could imagine what sort of impact that could have. The sky is the limit.”  What he wants to bring about, he says, is a “democratic culture” — even more than any specific laws that stipulate forms of democratic government. He pointed to Iran’s past under the Pahlavi monarchy, saying his grandfather remains a respected figure as a modernizer.  “If it becomes an issue of the family, my grandfather today is the most revered political figure in the architect of modern Iran,” he said in February. “Every chant of the streets of ‘god bless his soul.’ These are the actual slogans people chant on the street as they enter or exit a soccer stadium. Why? Because the intent was patriotic, helping Iran come out of the dark ages. There was no aspect of secular modern institutions from a postal system to a modern army to education which was in the hands of the clerics.”   Pahlavi’s father, the shah, brought in an era of industrialization and economic improvement alongside greater freedom for women, he said. “This is where the Gen Z of Iran is,” he said. “Regardless of whether I play a direct role or not, Iranians are coming out of the tunnel.”  Conversely, many Iranians still associate his father’s regime with out-of-touch elites and the notorious Savak secret police, whose brutality helped fuel the 1979 revolution. NOT SO FAST  Nobody can be sure what happens next in Iran. It may still come down to Trump and perhaps Israel.  Anti-regime demonstrations fill the streets of more than 100 towns and cities across the country of 90 million people. | Neil Hall/EPA Plenty of experts don’t believe the regime is finished, though it is clearly weakened. Even if the protests do result in change, many say it seems more likely that the regime will use a mixture of fear tactics and adaptation to protect itself rather than collapse or be toppled completely.  While reports suggest young people have led the protests and appear to have grown in confidence, recent days have seen a more ferocious regime response, with accounts of hospitals being overwhelmed with shooting victims. The demonstrations could still be snuffed out by a regime with a capacity for violence.  The Iranian opposition remains hugely fragmented, with many leading activists in prison. The substantial diaspora has struggled to find a unity of voice, though Pahlavi tried last year to bring more people on board with his own movement.  Sanam Vakil, an Iran specialist at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Iran should do better than reviving a “failed” monarchy. She added she was unsure how wide Pahlavi’s support really was inside the country. Independent, reliable polling is hard to find and memories of the darker side of the shah’s era run deep. But the exiled prince’s advantage now may be that there is no better option to oversee the collapse of the clerics and map out what comes next. “Pahlavi has name recognition and there is no other clear individual to turn to,” Vakil said. “People are willing to listen to his comments calling on them to go out in the streets.”

LONDON — The U.K.’s communications watchdog Ofcom said Monday it has launched an investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform X over reports that its AI chatbot Grok is producing non-consensual sexualized deepfakes of women and children. The investigation will ascertain whether the platform has complied with its duties under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act to protect British users from illegal content. “There have been deeply concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share undressed images of people — which may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography — and sexualized images of children that may amount to child sexual abuse material,” Ofcom said in a press release. This is a developing story.

President Donald Trump’s promise to revive the Venezuelan oil industry drew praise from U.S. energy executives on Friday — but no firm commitments to invest the vast sums of money needed to bring the country’s oil output back from the doldrums. The lack of firm pledges from the heads of the companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips that Trump summoned to the White House raised doubts about the president’s claim that U.S. oil producers were ready to spend $100 billion or more to rebuild Venezuela’s crude oil infrastructure. The country boasts the world’s largest oil reserves, but its production has cratered since the regime pushed most of those companies out decades ago. Exxon CEO Darren Woods offered the starkest assessment, telling Trump in the live-streamed meeting in the East Room that Venezuela is “uninvestable” under current conditions. He said major changes were needed before his company would return to the country, and that big questions remain about what return Exxon could expect from any investments. “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable,” Woods told Trump. “Significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system. There has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.” Still, Woods said he was confident the U.S. can help make those changes, and said he expected Exxon could put a technical team on the ground in Venezuela soon to assess the state of its oil infrastructure. Harold Hamm, a fracking executive and major Trump ally, expressed more enthusiasm but still fell short of making any commitments. “It excites me as an explorationist,” Hamm, whose experience has centered on oil production inside the U.S., said of the opportunity to invest in Venezuela. “It is a very exciting country and a lot of reserves — it’s got its challenges and the industry knows how to handle that.” Still, Energy Secretary Chris Wright pointed reporters after the meeting to a statement from Chevron — the only major U.S. oil company still operating in Venezuela — that it was ready to raise its output as a concrete sign the industry was willing to put more money into the country. Chevron currently produces about 240,000 barrels a day there with its partner, the Venezuelan state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA. Mark Nelson, Chevron’s vice chairman, told the gathering the company sees “a path forward” to increase production from its existing operations by 50 percent over the next 18 to 24 months. He did not commit to a dollar figure, however. Wright indicated that the $100 billion figure cited by Trump on Thursday was an estimate for the cost of reconstructing Venezuela’s dilapidated oil sector — rather than a firm spending commitment made by producing companies. “If you look at what’s a positive trajectory for Venezuela’s oil industry in the next decade, that’s probably going to take about $100 billion investment,” said Wright, who later told Bloomberg Television he is likely to travel to Venezuela “before too long.” Most of the nearly two dozen companies in attendance at Friday’s meeting expressed tepid support for the administration’s plan, though others indicated they were eager to jump back quickly. Wael Sawan, the CEO of the European energy giant Shell, said the company had been pushed out in Venezuela’s nationalization program in the 1970s, giving up 1 million barrels per day of oil production. Now it was seeking U.S. permits to go back, he said. “We are ready to go and looking forward to the investment in support of the Venezuelan people,” he said. Jeffery Hildebrand, CEO of independent oil and gas producer Hilcorp Energy and a major Trump donor, said his company was “fully committed and ready to go to rebuild the infrastructure in Venezuela.” Trump said during the meeting that companies that invest in Venezuela would be assured “total safety, total security,” without the U.S. government spending taxpayer dollars or putting boots on the ground. He indicated that Venezuela would provide security for the U.S. companies, and that the companies would bring their own protection as well. “These are tough people. They go into areas that you wouldn’t want to go. They go into areas that if they invited me, I’d say, ‘No, thanks. I’ll see you back in Palm Beach,’” Trump said of the oil companies. Before the executives spoke, Trump insisted that oil executives are lining up to take the administration up on the opportunity. “If you don’t want to go in, just let me know,” he said. “There are 25 people not here today willing to take your place.” Following the public meeting, the companies stayed for further discussions with administration officials behind closed doors. The president also dismissed speculation that the administration may offer financial guarantees to back up what he acknowledged would be a risky investment. “I hope I don’t have to give a backstop,” he said. “These are the biggest companies in the world sitting around this table — they know the risks.” Trump also laughed off the billions that Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are owed for the assets seized by the Venezuelan regime decades ago. “Nice write-off,” he quipped. “You’ll get a lot of your money back,” Trump told ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance. “We’re going to start with an even plate, though — we’re not going to look at what people lost in the past because that was their fault.” ConocoPhillips spokesperson Dennis Nuss said in a statement that Lance “appreciates today’s valuable opportunity to engage with President Trump in a discussion about preparing Venezuela to be investment ready.” The White House at the last minute shifted the meeting from a closed-door session in the Cabinet Room to a live-televised spectacle in the East Room. “Everybody wants to be there,” the president wrote of the oil executives on social media just ahead of the meeting. POLITICO reported on Thursday that the White House had scrambled to invite additional companies to the meeting because of skepticism from the top oil majors about reentering the country. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged in an appearance Thursday that “big oil companies who move slowly … are not interested,” but said the administration’s “phones are ringing off the hook” with calls from smaller players. Bethany Williams, a spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute, called Friday’s meeting “a constructive, initial conversation that highlighted both the energy potential and the challenges presented in Venezuela, including the importance of rule of law, security, and stable governance.” Venezuela — even with strongman Nicolás Maduro in custody in New York — remains under the rule of the same socialist government that appropriated the rigs, pipelines and property of foreign oil companies two decades ago. Questions remain about who would guarantee the companies’ workers’ safety, particularly since Trump has publicly ruled out sending in troops. Kevin Book, a managing director at the energy research firm ClearView Energy Partners, noted that few CEOs in the meeting outright rejected the notion of returning to or investing in Venezuela, instead couching any sort of presence on several conditions. Some of those might be nearer term, such as security guarantees. Others, like reestablishing legal stability in Venezuela, appear more distant. “They need to understand the risk and they need to understand the return,” Book said. “What it sounded like most of the companies were saying … is that they want to understand the risk and the return and then they’ll look at the investment.” Evanan Romero, a Houston-based oil consultant involved in the Trump administration’s effort to bring U.S. oil producers back to Venezuela, said international oil companies will not return to the country under the same laws and government that expropriated their assets decades earlier. “The main contribution that [interim president] Delcy [Rodríguez] and her government can do is make a bonfire of those laws and put it on fire in the Venezuelan Bolivar Square,” Romero said. “With those, we cannot do any reconstruction of the oil industry.” Zack Colman and Irie Sentner contributed to this report.

LONDON – Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy raised the recent flood of AI-generated sexualized images of women and children on X with JD Vance when the two met in Washington yesterday, two people familiar with the meeting told POLITICO. One person familiar with the meeting said that Lammy raised the issue with Vance, explained the U.K.’s position, and repeated what Prime Minister Keir Starmer said about it. A second person familiar with the meeting said it had gone well, and that Vance seemed receptive to Lammy’s points. Both people were granted anonymity to speak freely about the meeting, which they weren’t authorized to discuss publicly. Vance’s team didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A U.K. government spokesperson declined to comment. The flood of nonconsensual images on X, created using the platform’s generative AI chatbot feature Grok, attracted the attention of the U.K.’s media regulator Ofcom, which said it made “urgent contact” with X on Monday to determine whether an investigation under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act is warranted. On Friday an Ofcom spokesperson said: “We urgently made contact on Monday and set a firm deadline of today to explain themselves, to which we have received a response. We’re now undertaking an expedited assessment as a matter of urgency and will provide further updates shortly.” The U.S. administration has previously criticized the U.K.’s online safety laws, saying they limit freedom of expression. The U.K. government said this week that Ofcom had its full backing, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday: “It’s disgraceful, it’s disgusting, and it’s not to be tolerated. X has got to get a grip of this, and Ofcom has our full support to take action in relation to this.” “This is wrong, it’s unlawful, we’re not going to tolerate it. I’ve asked for all options to be on the table,” Starmer said. In a statement issued on Sunday, X said: “We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary. Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.” On Friday X restricted the function which allows users to produce AI-generated material so that only paying subscribers can access it.  X said in a statement that limiting the feature to paid subscribers “helps ensure responsible use while we continue refining things.” The U.K. government disagrees. “That simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said on Friday. But it’s not only AI-generated images on X that are the problem, children’s protection watchdog the Internet Watch Foundation said on Wednesday it had found evidence of Grok generating child sexual abuse material (CSAM) which was being circulated on a dark web forum. X’s CEO and owner, tech billionaire Elon Musk, has previously attacked the U.K.’s Labour government and was once a close adviser of President Donald Trump. Although Musk feuded with the Trump administration in the summer, by October there were signs his relationship with Trump was improving, and The Washington Post reported last month that Vance brokered a truce between Musk and Trump. Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.

LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer attacked X’s decision to make its controversial AI image generation feature only available to users with paid subscriptions. In recent weeks X’s AI image generation feature has been used to produce a flood of nonconsensual sexualized images, including of women and children, drawing condemnation from lawmakers around the world. X said in a statement that limiting the feature to paid subscribers “helps ensure responsible use while we continue refining things.” The U.K. government disagrees. “That simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said on Friday. “It’s not a solution. In fact, it’s insulting to victims of misogyny and sexual violence. What it does prove is that X can move swiftly when it wants to do so,” they added. X has been approached for comment. Prime Minister Starmer said on Thursday that the issue of sexualized deepfakes proliferating on X was “disgraceful, it’s disgusting, and it’s not to be tolerated. X has got to get a grip of this, and Ofcom has our full support to take action in relation to this.” The U.K.’s media regulator Ofcom said on Monday it was in urgent contact with X to ascertain whether an investigation under the Online Safety Act is warranted.

LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday vowed to take action against Elon Musk’s social media platform X after its Grok artificial intelligence system produced a flood of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes that included depictions of minors. “It’s disgraceful, it’s disgusting, and it’s not to be tolerated. X has got to get a grip of this, and Ofcom has our full support to take action in relation to this,” Starmer said in a broadcast interview after thousands of nude deepfakes were published on X. “This is wrong, it’s unlawful, we’re not going to tolerate it. I’ve asked for all options to be on the table,” he told the Greatest Hits Radio. “We will take action on this because it is simply not tolerable,” he added. Earlier this week the U.K.’s communications regulator Ofcom said it had made “urgent contact” with X to establish whether there are grounds to investigate the platform under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told MPs last year that current U.K. online safety laws do not cover all generative AI chatbots and she is looking at whether new legislation is required. The Information Commissioner’s Office, the U.K. data watchdog, confirmed yesterday that it too is in touch with X amid concerns people’s personal data is being misused. Musk has historically been highly critical of Starmer. Last January the tech billionaire made a series of unsubstantiated claims about the British PM’s role as chief prosecutor in the grooming gang scandal, and in summer 2024 suggested “civil war is inevitable” in the U.K.

President Donald Trump’s Cabinet officials are scheduling their first formal calls with oil company CEOs to press them to revive Venezuela’s flagging oil production, four people familiar with the conversations told POLITICO. Calls that Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are planning with chief executives represent some of the first official outreach that the administration has made to the U.S. companies after months of informal discussions with people in the sector, these people said — days after President Donald Trump told reporters that “our very large United States oil companies” will “spend billions of dollars” in Venezuela. However, the companies’ executives remain wary of entering a socialist-ruled country that was plunged into political upheaval after U.S. forces took strongman Nicolás Maduro into custody over the weekend, following decades of neglect in its nationalized oil fields, according to market analysts and industry officials. Industry officials are also discussing what types of incentives would be needed to get them to return to the country, according to two industry officials familiar with the plans who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Those could include having the U.S. government signing contracts guaranteeing payment and security or forming public-private joint ventures. Even if they don’t yet have fully formed ideas for what would get them to invest in Venezuela, Trump’s insistence is difficult to ignore, said one former administration agency head who was granted anonymity to discuss the evolving matters. “Most companies have been thinking about this for a while. All of the big folks are probably thinking about it — and very, very, very hard,” the person said. “It’s a pretty powerful thing when the president of the United States says, ‘I need you to do this.’” Publicly, the White House expressed confidence. “All of our oil companies are ready and willing to make big investments in Venezuela that will rebuild their oil infrastructure, which was destroyed by the illegitimate Maduro regime,” spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement. “American oil companies will do an incredible job for the people of Venezuela and will represent the United States well.” One person said the administration also “hopes” the American Petroleum Institute, the powerful trade association representing oil companies working in the United States, would form a task force to advise the White House on how best to revive Venezuelan oil production. “In nearly all cases, these calls are the first outreach from the administration on Venezuela,” the person said. API is “closely watching developments involving Venezuela and any potential implications for global energy markets,” group spokesperson Justin Prendergast said in response to questions. “Events like this underscore the importance of strong U.S. energy leadership. Globally, energy companies make investment decisions based on stability, the rule of law, market forces and long-term operational considerations,” Prendergast said. Trump told reporters on Sunday that he had spoken to U.S. oil companies “before and after” the military operation that seized Maduro and brought him to New York, where the former Venezuelan leader made his first court appearance on Monday. “And they want to go in, and they’re going to do a great job for the people of Venezuela, and they’re going to represent us well,” Trump continued. Industry executives on Monday told Reuters no such outreach had occurred to oil majors Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, all of which have experience working in Venezuela’s oil fields. Bringing Venezuela’s oil production — now around 1 million barrels a day — back to its glory-days’ height of 3 million barrels a day would require at least $183 billion and more than a decade of effort, industry analyst firm Rystad Energy said Monday. While the Venezuelan government might supply some of that money, international companies would need to spend $35 billion in the next few years to reach that goal. “Rystad Energy believes that around $53 billion of oil and gas upstream and infrastructure investment is needed over the next 15 years just to keep Venezuela’s crude oil production flat at 1.1 million” barrels a day, the firm said in a client note. “Going beyond 1.4 million [barrels a day] is possible but would require a stable investment of $8 [billion]-$9 billion per year from 2026 to 2040, on top of ‘hold-flat’ capital requirements.” ConocoPhillips spokesperson Dennis Nuss said in a statement that it would be “premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments,” but said the company is monitoring the “potential implications for global energy supply and stability” from the events in Venezuela. ConocoPhillips is continuing its efforts to collect more than $10 billion in compensation it was awarded in arbitration for the Venezuelan government’s seizure of the company’s assets in 2007, Nuss said. Exxon Mobil and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment. Oil field services companies Halliburton and Baker Hughes did not respond for comment, and SLB declined to comment. The only company to publicly indicate interest in Venezuela has been Continental Resources, a firm led by Trump ally and informal energy adviser Harold Hamm. Hamm told the Financial Times on Sunday that “with improved regulatory and governmental stability we would definitely consider future investment.” Continental, which played a key role in developing oil fracking technology, has never operated outside the United States — though it announced on Monday a deal in which it would buy assets in Argentina. People in the oil industry have said a major concern is that Venezuela is not stable enough to guarantee the safety of any workers and equipment they might send there. Companies are asking that the U.S. government contract directly with them before they commit to entering the country. “We need some boots-on-the-ground security and some financial security. That’s on top of the list,” said a second industry executive familiar with the talks who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Trump’s decision to allow Maduro’s second-in-command, acting President Delcy Rodríguez, and other members of the regime to remain in charge of the country’s government has also made industry executives wary of taking on the job, this person added. Rodríguez and her family had been part of the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chávez in the mid-2000s when the regime seized the assets of foreign oil companies. Colombia, Canada, the EU and the United States have levied sanctions against her after accusing her of undermining the Venezuelan elections. “Who’s running the game here?” the second industry executive said. “If she’s going to be in charge — plus the guys who have been there all along — what guarantee can you give us that stuff is going to change? Those three issues — physical, financial and political security — have to be settled before anyone goes in.” Longtime Republican foreign policy hand Elliott Abrams, who served as Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela during his first term, said the president is “exaggerating” the likelihood that companies will return to the country, given the risk and capital required. “The president seems to suggest that he will make the decision, but that is not right — the boards of these companies will make the decisions,” said Abrams, who is now senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I expect that you’ll see all of them now say, ‘This is fantastic, it’s a great opportunity, and we have a team ready to go to Venezuela,’ but that’s politics,” he added. “That doesn’t mean they’re going to invest.”