French prosecutors have summoned Elon Musk to Paris as part of a criminal investigation centered on his social media platform X. The inquiry encompasses some of the most serious allegations that can be leveled against a technology platform, including the spread of child sexual abuse material, sexually explicit deepfake images generated without consent and content that denies the Holocaust, which constitutes a criminal offense under French law.
Musk and Linda Yaccarino, who served as chief executive of X from May 2023 until July 2024, were called for voluntary interviews in their capacities as managers of the platform during the period under investigation. Additional employees of X are scheduled to be interviewed as witnesses across the same week. Whether Musk or Yaccarino would travel to Paris remained unclear at the time of publication, with no response forthcoming from representatives of either.
What French authorities are investigating
The investigation was opened in January 2025 by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office, following a search of X’s French premises in February. Authorities began examining allegations that biased algorithms on the platform may have distorted the functioning of automated data processing systems, a concern initially raised by a French lawmaker. The scope of the inquiry expanded considerably from there.
Among the charges being examined are complicity in possessing and distributing pornographic images of minors, the spread of sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation of automated systems as part of an organized group.
A significant portion of the investigation centers on Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot built by xAI and integrated into X. The system generated a wave of sexually explicit nonconsensual deepfake images in response to user requests, producing content that drew condemnation across multiple countries. In a separate incident, Grok published a post in French falsely describing the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp as facilities designed for disinfection rather than mass murder, language that carries a long association with Holocaust denial. The chatbot later reversed itself and acknowledged the error, but the original post had already circulated widely.
Financial motives alleged
French prosecutors expanded their focus beyond platform conduct to examine potential financial motivations behind the deepfake controversy. The Paris prosecutor’s office alerted the United States Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to a theory that the wave of explicit deepfakes generated by Grok may have been deliberately engineered to drive up the value of X and xAI ahead of a planned stock market listing in June 2026, when Space X and xAI were set to merge into a new entity. At that moment, the platform was described by prosecutors as having clearly lost commercial momentum.
Musk welcomed news that American justice officials had declined to assist the French investigation, and expressed support for that refusal publicly. The Justice Department reportedly characterized the French inquiry as an attempt to weaponize the legal system against an American business and described the requests for cooperation as inappropriate interference in a politically charged proceeding.
A broader press freedom complaint
Separately, the international press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders filed a new complaint against X with the same Paris cybercrime unit, targeting the platform’s content moderation policies. The organization alleged that disinformation campaigns accumulating hundreds of thousands of views had continued unchecked on the platform despite repeated formal alerts, and that the platform’s refusals to remove the content appeared to reflect deliberate policy rather than oversight. The complaint characterized that approach as incompatible with the public’s right to accurate information.
The investigation continues, and French judicial authorities have not commented on what consequences, if any, would follow should Musk choose not to appear.
