Elon Musk’s X faces probe in France as prosecutors search Paris office over child-abuse content, deepfakes; billionaire summoned
French prosecutors said on Tuesday that they were carrying out searches at the Paris offices of X, the social media platform owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, as part of an ongoing investigation into several alleged offences.The investigation was opened in January last year by the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit. It is examining whether the platform played a role in the storage and spread of child sexual abuse material, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and the manipulation of automated data systems as part of an organised group.Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino, who served as X’s CEO from 2023 to 2025, have also been asked to appear for voluntary interviews on April 20. Several employees of X have also been summoned the same week to give statements as witnesses.In a post on X, the Paris prosecutors’ office confirmed that searches were underway and said it would stop using the platform, and asked people to follow its updates on other social media channels instead.The case was first opened after a French lawmaker raised concerns that biased algorithms on X may have affected the functioning of automated data systems. It was later expanded following reports that the platform’s AI chatbot, Grok, had denied the Holocaust and generated sexually explicit deepfake content.X has faced sustained scrutiny from European governments and the European Union over its influence on public debate and elections. Last year, the EU fined the platform about $140 million for failing to adequately tackle hate speech and misinformation. Last month, the bloc also opened a formal probe into sexual deepfakes linked to Grok.
