French police raided the offices of Elon Musk’s social media network X on Tuesday and prosecutors ordered the tech billionaire to face questions in April in a widening investigation, amid growing scrutiny of the platform by authorities across Europe.
France’s raid and the summoning of Musk — which could further increase tensions between Europe and the U.S. over big tech and free speech — are linked to a year-long investigation into suspected abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction by X or its executives.
Britain’s privacy watchdog, meanwhile, also kicked off a formal investigation into Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok over the processing of personal data and its potential to produce harmful sexualised images and video content.
In a statement the Paris prosecutor’s office said it had broadened the scope of its investigation following complaints over the functioning of Grok.
The French probe will now also investigate alleged complicity in the “detention and diffusion” of images of a child‑pornographic nature and the violation of a person’s image rights with sexually explicit deepfakes, among other potential crimes.
