French authorities are investigating images of a child‑pornographic nature and sexually explicit deepfakes on the platform.
French police raided the offices of Elon Musk’s social media network X on Tuesday (Feb 3) and prosecutors ordered the tech billionaire to face questions in a widening investigation, amid growing scrutiny of the platform by authorities across Europe.
The raid by the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit and Musk’s summoning – which could further increase tensions between Europe and the US over Big Tech and free speech – are linked to a year-long investigation into suspected abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction by X or its executives.
Britain’s privacy watchdog, meanwhile, also kicked off a formal investigation into Musk’s artificial-intelligence chatbot Grok over the processing of personal data and its potential to produce harmful sexualised images and video content.
“The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office is plainly attempting to exert pressure on X’s senior management in the United States by targeting our French entity and employees, who are not the focus of this investigation,” X said in a statement.
“The Prosecutor’s Office has ignored the established procedural mechanisms to obtain evidence in compliance with international treaties and X’s rights to defend itself.”
Referring to the raids, Musk said in a post on X, “This is a political attack.”
INVESTIGATION INCLUDES SEXUALLY EXPLICIT DEEPFAKES
In a statement, the Paris prosecutor’s office said it had broadened the scope of its investigation following complaints over the functioning of Grok.
The French probe will now also investigate alleged complicity in the “detention and diffusion” of images of a child‑pornographic nature and the violation of a person’s image rights with sexually explicit deepfakes, among other potential crimes.
Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino were summoned to a hearing on Apr 20. Other X staff were also summoned as witnesses.
In July, Musk denied the initial accusations and said French prosecutors were launching a “politically-motivated criminal investigation”.
“At this stage, the conduct of this investigation is part of a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French laws, insofar as it operates on national territory,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Such summons are mandatory, though they are harder to enforce on people who do not live in France.
After such a hearing, authorities can decide to either shelve or continue the probe, and potentially place suspects in custody.
PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE QUITTING X
Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit is conducting the investigation in France, together with the French police’s own cybercrime unit and Europol. The unit previously arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov in 2024 over charges including complicity in organised crime carried out on the messaging app, charges his lawyer has described as “absurd”.
The prosecutor’s office said it launched the investigation after being contacted by a lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms in X were likely to have distorted the operation of an automated data processing system.
