French prosecutors on Tuesday searched the Paris places of work of Elon Musk’s X as a part of an investigation into alleged political interference and sexual deepfakes and summoned Musk in what the social media large slammed as “politicized” raids.
The search got here as each Britain and the European Union have opened investigations into the creation of sexualised deepfakes of girls and youngsters by Musk’s AI chatbot Grok.
A proposal by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to grow to be the most recent nation to ban social media for below 16s enraged Musk who on Tuesday referred to as Sanchez “a tyrant and traitor” to Spain’s folks.
French authorities performed a search on Tuesday at X’s French premises as a part of an investigation, which started in January 2025, over allegations that X’s algorithm was used to intrude in French politics. It now additionally features a probe into the Grok AI instrument’s dissemination of Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes.
EU police company Europol stated it supplied an analyst to present on-the-ground help within the search.
“The Paris Public Prosecutor’s workplace extensively publicized the raid – making clear that right this moment’s motion was an abusive act of regulation enforcement theater designed to realize illegitimate political goals quite than advance professional regulation enforcement objectives,” X’s International Authorities Affairs group posted on the platform.
“The allegations underlying right this moment’s raid are baseless and X categorically denies any wrongdoing.”
The Paris prosecutor’s workplace stated that “summons for voluntary interviews on April 20, 2026, in Paris have been despatched to Mr Elon Musk and Ms Linda Yaccarino, of their capability as de facto and de jure managers of the X platform on the time of the occasions” being investigated.
Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July final yr after two years on the helm of the corporate.
The French probe focuses on alleged offences together with complicity in possessing little one sexual abuse materials and denial of crimes in opposition to humanity.
X workers have additionally been summoned to seem between April 20 and 24 “to be heard as witnesses”, stated Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, whose workplace introduced in a closing message on X it could be leaving the platform.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who’s below investigation in France over unlawful content material on his messaging app, additionally blasted the raid.
“France is the one nation on the planet that’s criminally persecuting all social networks that give folks a point of freedom,” the Russian-born entrepreneur wrote on X, naming Telegram, TikTok, and X.
Durov, who holds French and Russian passports, has been accused of complicity in operating an internet platform that allowed illicit transactions, photographs of kid intercourse abuse and different unlawful content material. He denies the allegations.
There was a broader worldwide backlash in opposition to Grok after it emerged that customers might sexualise photographs of girls and youngsters utilizing easy textual content prompts reminiscent of “put her in a bikini” or “take away her garments”.
Britain’s knowledge regulator on Tuesday launched investigations into Musk’s X and xAI to see whether or not the businesses complied with private knowledge legal guidelines in Grok’s technology of sexualised deepfakes.
“The reported creation and circulation of such content material raises critical considerations below UK knowledge safety regulation and presents a threat of great potential hurt to the general public,” the Data Commissioner’s Workplace stated in an announcement.
In January, the European Union additionally hit X with an investigation over Grok’s technology of sexualised deepfake photographs of girls and minors.
Paris cybercrime prosecutors referred to as for the police probe in July 2025 to analyze suspected crimes, together with manipulating and extracting knowledge from automated programs “as a part of a prison gang,” after receiving two complaints in January 2025.
One grievance was made by Eric Bothorel, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist occasion, who alleged “diminished variety of voices and choices” and “private interventions” by Musk within the platform’s administration since he took it over in 2022.
Musk has confronted criticism for backing proper wing events in Europe, together with vocal backing for the far-right Different for Germany (AfD) occasion.
On prime of X’s condemnation of the investigation and Tuesday’s raid, the US administration stated in July it could defend the free speech of Individuals in opposition to “acts of overseas censorship”.
Revealed – February 04, 2026 11:56 am IST