The French offices of Elon Musk's social media platform X were raided on Tuesday, February 3, as part of an investigation into the company's use of algorithms and its artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok. The prosecutor's office also said both Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino had been summoned to appear at hearings on April 20, according to Reuters.
Other staff at X have also been called to appear during the same week as witnesses.
Charges Against Elon Musk's X
The cybercrime division of the Paris prosecutor's office is investigating X in relation to seven accusations, including complicity in distributing images of a child of a pornographic nature, producing content that denies crimes against humanity, and fraudulent extraction of data, according to a statement on February 3 from the city's chief prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, reported The New York Times.
The raid is connected to a year-long investigation examining suspected misuse of X's algorithms, along with claims of fraudulent data extraction involving the platform or its executives.
The inquiry began in January 2025 amid concerns over problems with X's algorithm, which is the system that determines how content is ranked and circulated. The scope of the case later widened after additional allegations that Grok, X's AI chatbot, had been spreading Holocaust denial claims and sexual deepfakes, Beccuau said in the statement, according to The NYT.
In a separate statement, the prosecutor's office claimed X discontinued a tool that was meant to restrict child sexual abuse imagery, sparking fears that the platform was “deliberately allowing child pornography content to flourish.”
The same statement also raised concerns that Grok enabled users to generate sexualised versions of existing images without the consent of the people pictured.
French investigators also alleged that X has refused to provide information about subscribers suspected of criminal activity, adding to tensions between the platform and authorities.
The raid comes just a day after Musk said he was merging his artificial intelligence company, xAI, with SpaceX, his rocket company.
Also Read | Elon Musk's xAI Merger Poses Bigger Threat To OpenAI, Anthropic
What X And Elon Musk Said
In a public statement released after the raid, X said it “categorically denies any wrongdoing” and called the investigation politicised and one that “distorts French law, circumvents due process, and endangers free speech.”
French judicial authorities raided X's Paris office today in connection with a politicized criminal investigation into alleged manipulation of algorithms and purported fraudulent data extraction. We are disappointed by this development, but we are not surprised. The Paris Public…
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) February 3, 2026
Writing on X, Musk said the raid was a “political attack.”
This is a political attack https://t.co/Z204wJuQIr
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2026
Yaccarino, who resigned from X last year, also took to the social media platform and wrote, “French prosecutors are distorting French law in order to restrict free speech and carry out a political vendetta against Americans. To be clear: they are lying. While I'm no longer at X, I stand by X's mission. More than ever.”
This is an outrageous example of another EU proxy campaign to pressure @elonmusk and X. French prosecutors are distorting French law in order to restrict free speech and carry out a political vendetta against Americans. To be clear: they are lying.
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) February 3, 2026
While I'm no longer at X, I… https://t.co/01xG7qQFRh
UK Privacy Watchdog Opens Separate Grok Probe
In a separate development, Britain's privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office, also said on February 3 in a statement that it had launched a formal investigation into Grok over the processing of personal data and reports that the chatbot had been used to generate nonconsensual sexual imagery, including of children.
