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French prosecutors connected Tuesday searched the Paris offices of Elon Musk's X arsenic portion of an probe into alleged governmental interference and intersexual deepfakes and summoned Musk successful what the societal media elephantine slammed arsenic "politicized" raids.
The hunt came arsenic some Britain and the European Union person opened investigations into the instauration of sexualised deepfakes of women and children by Musk's AI chatbot Grok.
A connection by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to go the latest state to prohibition societal media for nether 16s enraged Musk who connected Tuesday called Sanchez "a tyrant and traitor" to Spain's people.
French authorities conducted a hunt connected Tuesday astatine X's French premises arsenic portion of an investigation, which began successful January 2025, implicit allegations that X's algorithm was utilized to interfere successful French politics. It present besides includes a probe into the Grok AI tool's dissemination of Holocaust denials and intersexual deepfakes.
EU constabulary bureau Europol said it provided an expert to springiness on-the-ground enactment successful the search.
"The Paris Public Prosecutor's bureau wide publicized the raid - making wide that today's enactment was an abusive enactment of instrumentality enforcement theatre designed to execute illegitimate governmental objectives alternatively than beforehand morganatic instrumentality enforcement goals," X's Global Government Affairs squad posted connected the platform.
"The allegations underlying today's raid are baseless and X categorically denies immoderate wrongdoing."
The Paris prosecutor's bureau said that "summons for voluntary interviews connected April 20, 2026, successful Paris person been sent to Mr Elon Musk and Ms Linda Yaccarino, successful their capableness arsenic de facto and de jure managers of the X level astatine the clip of the events" being investigated.
Yaccarino resigned arsenic CEO of X successful July past twelvemonth aft 2 years astatine the helm of the company.
The French probe focuses connected alleged offences including complicity successful possessing kid intersexual maltreatment worldly and denial of crimes against humanity.
X employees person besides been summoned to look betwixt April 20 and 24 "to beryllium heard arsenic witnesses", said Paris authoritative Laure Beccuau, whose bureau announced successful a last connection connected X it would beryllium leaving the platform.
Telegram laminitis Pavel Durov, who is nether probe successful France implicit amerciable contented connected his messaging app, besides blasted the raid.
"France is the lone state successful the satellite that is criminally persecuting each societal networks that springiness radical immoderate grade of freedom," the Russian-born entrepreneur wrote connected X, naming Telegram, TikTok, and X.
Durov, who holds French and Russian passports, has been accused of complicity successful moving an online level that allowed illicit transactions, images of kid enactment maltreatment and different amerciable content. He denies the allegations.
There has been a broader planetary backlash against Grok aft it emerged that users could sexualise images of women and children utilizing elemental substance prompts specified arsenic "put her successful a bikini" oregon "remove her clothes".
Britain's information regulator connected Tuesday launched investigations into Musk's X and xAI to spot whether the companies complied with idiosyncratic information laws successful Grok's procreation of sexualised deepfakes.
"The reported instauration and circulation of specified contented raises superior concerns nether UK information extortion instrumentality and presents a hazard of important imaginable harm to the public," the Information Commissioner's Office said successful a statement.
In January, the European Union besides deed X with an probe implicit Grok's procreation of sexualised deepfake images of women and minors.
Paris cybercrime prosecutors called for the constabulary probe successful July 2025 to analyse suspected crimes, including manipulating and extracting information from automated systems "as portion of a transgression gang,” aft receiving 2 complaints successful January 2025.
One ailment was made by Eric Bothorel, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party, who alleged "reduced diverseness of voices and options" and "personal interventions" by Musk successful the platform's absorption since helium took it implicit successful 2022.
Musk has faced disapproval for backing close helping parties successful Europe, including vocal backing for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
On apical of X's condemnation of the probe and Tuesday's raid, the US medication said successful July it would support the escaped code of Americans against "acts of overseas censorship".
