They were probably never against such things, they just wanted power to control content and realized right now was the time to do it.

I think the article’s subtitle is spot on:

The finance industry is afraid of Elon Musk, Grok edition

The payment processors’ fear of legal action and financial impact outweighs what little morality they have.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate found 101 sexualized images of children as part of its sample of 20,000 images made by Grok from December 29th to January 8th. Using that sample, the group estimated that 23,000 sexualized images of children had been produced in that time frame. Over that 11-day period, they estimated that on average, a sexualized image of a child was produced every 41 seconds. In the past, payment providers have been aggressive about cutting access to websites thought to have a significant presence of CSAM — or even legal, consensually produced sexual content… So why is X different? It’s run by Elon Musk. “He’s the richest man in the world, he has close ties to the US government, and he’s incredibly litigious,” says Pfefferkorn. In fact, Musk has previously filed suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate; in a now-dismissed lawsuit, he claimed it illegally collected data showing an increase in hate speech after he bought the platform formerly known as Twitter.