Police raid, search X office in Paris, summon Elon Musk for questioning – National
The billionaire’s X platform and artificial intelligence company xAI are also facing scrutiny from the U.K.’s data privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office and Ofcom — the U.K. government’s regulatory and competition authority — which both opened formal investigations Tuesday into how the companies handled personal data during the development of the AI chatbot Grok.
Musk’s Grok, which operates on X, sparked outrage last month after it produced non-consensual sexualized deepfakes of real people at the request of some X users.
The French investigation is also probing Grok-generated posts that allegedly denied the Holocaust, which is a crime in the country, by misrepresenting Zyklon B as a disinfectant against typhus instead of the toxic substance used in Nazi gas chambers to murder people at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek and other extermination camps.
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In later X posts, the AI chatbot apparently acknowledged that it shared false information about Zyklon B, and directed users to historical evidence that the noxious substance was used to kill more than one million people in Auschwitz gas chambers.
It also removed comments appearing to praise Nazi leader Adolf Hitler last year.
The probe was opened last January by the French prosecutors’ cybercrime unit with the support of the French Gendarmerie’s cybercrime unit (UNCyber) and Europol.
Paris prosecutors said in a statement that the investigation was looking into alleged “complicity” in possessing and spreading pornographic images of minors, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized group, among other charges.
Musk and the former CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, have been asked to attend “voluntary hearings” on April 20, according to the statement. Yaccarino was CEO from May 2023 until July 2025.
Employees of X have also been summoned that same week to be heard as witnesses, the statement said.
X’s lawyer in France, Kami Haeri, told The Associated Press: “We are not making any comment at this stage.”
In a message posted to X, the Paris prosecutors’ office announced it was leaving the platform and urged followers to join it on other social media platforms. Its account is now closed.
“At this stage, the conduct of the investigation is based on a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French law, as it operates on the national territory,” the prosecutors’ statement said.
X has also been under scrutiny from the European Union. The 27-nation bloc opened an investigation last month after Grok allegedly published “manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material.”
Brussels has already fined X 120 million euros for shortcomings under the union’s sweeping digital regulations, including blue checkmarks that broke rules on “deceptive design practices” and risked exposing users to scams and manipulation.
— With files from The Associated Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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