French prosecutors have raided X’s Paris office, and CEO Elon Musk has been ordered to appear and explain why the site has become a hub for deepfakes.
Cybercrime prosecutors said they were searching the site as part of an investigation opened early last year, which began with allegations that X’s content algorithm was biased. The probe has since widened to look at the platform’s role in sexualised deepfake images linked to its Grok chatbot.
Prosecutors also said they are examining other potential charges, including dissemination of child pornography and Holocaust denial, which is illegal in France.
French officials said they summoned X’s owner, Elon Musk, X’s former chief executive, Linda Yaccarino and other employees for voluntary interviews in April. Prosecutors said the investigation was at a “constructive” stage aimed at securing compliance with French law, and that the interviews would allow executives to explain their actions.
They noted that suspects who skip such interviews can later face arrest warrants.
X hit back, calling the raid an “abusive act of law enforcement theatre designed to achieve illegitimate political objectives” and said the French allegations were baseless.
The platform sits inside Musk’s artificial intelligence outfit xAI, which has now been purchased by his rocket company SpaceX.
The raid and summons land amid a widening transatlantic debate about whether large platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X should police speech, and how aggressively governments should intervene. European regulators are implementing a new set of content rules, while the Trump administration and other US officials have accused Europeans of trying to muzzle dissent beyond their borders.
The disagreement concerns what constitutes lawful speech. Some European governments ban certain hate speech, such as antisemitic or racist posts, that remain legal in the US, and privacy rights can sometimes trump free expression in Europe.
The US House Judiciary Committee released a report accusing the European Commission of running a “global censorship campaign” that infringes on Americans’ online speech in the US. A hearing is planned for today.
The report claims that the EU has pressured platforms to change their moderation rules and that, because many services apply a single ruleset globally, “it affects what Americans can say and see online in the United States.”
The European Commission argues that its law, the Digital Services Act, supports speech by requiring transparency in moderation and providing users with appeal mechanisms. European Commission spokesman said: “We stand for freedom of expression. Any allegation towards Europe saying that we are not protecting freedom of expression, or any censorship allegations, is complete nonsense.”
The EU fined X approximately $140 million in December for allegedly breaching the Digital Services Act, and officials are also investigating the spread of illegal content and the risks associated with its recommendation systems.
This year, the EU and the UK both opened new probes into X over sexualised images, including images of children, created by the Grok chatbot. The UK regulator said on Tuesday it has sent binding requests for information to X, and fines are on the table if it does not comply, while X has said it has limited use of the feature.
France’s X investigation began in January 2025 after complaints from a lawmaker and another official, alleging X’s content-selection algorithm was skewed towards Musk’s views and amounted to foreign interference. In July, prosecutors sought access to the algorithm, then expanded the case in November after reports of antisemitic posts, including Holocaust denial, and in January added the creation and dissemination of kiddie porn and non-consensual deepfakes to the list of potential charges.
