Paris prosecutors raid France offices of Elon Musk's X

The French offices of Elon Musk's X have been raided by the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit, as part of an investigation into suspected offences including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography.

The prosecutor's office said the probe began in January 2025 when it started looking into content recommended by the social media platform's algorithm, before being widened to include its controversial AI chatbot, Grok.

In a statement, it added that both Musk and former X chief executive officer Linda Yaccarino had been summoned to appear at hearings in April.

X has yet to comment but has previously characterised the investigation as an attack on free speech.

X previously described the widening of the probe, in July 2025, in a post at the time, as "politically-motivated" and denied allegations it had manipulated its algorithm.

Prosecutors say they are now investigating whether X has broken the law across multiple areas.

Among potential crimes it said it would investigate were complicity in possession or organised distribution of images of children of a pornographic nature, infringement of people's image rights with sexual deepfakes and fraudulent data extraction by an organised group.

The prosecutor's office also said it was leaving X and would communicate on LinkedIn and Instagram from now on.

Musk's social media platform has recently been subject to intense scrutiny over sexualised images generated and edited on the site using its AI tool Grok.

The images - often made using real images of women without their consent - prompted a barrage of criticism from victims, online safety campaigners and politicians.

The company eventually intervened to prevent the practice.

In late January, the European Commission announced an investigation into its parent company xAI over concerns about the images.

A similar probe had been previously launched by the UK regulator, Ofcom.

Pavel Durov - founder of the messaging app Telegram - criticised the French authorities, accusing France of being "the only country in the world that is criminally persecuting all social networks that give people some degree of freedom".

"Don't be mistaken: this is not a free country," he added in a post on X.

Durov was arrested and detained in France in August 2024 over alleged moderation lapses on his messaging app, which the Paris prosecutor's office said had failed to curb criminal activity.

He was permitted to leave the country last March after the platform made some changes to the way it operates following the arrest.

These included sharing some user data with authorities in response to legal requests.