Musk’s X office in Paris raided by police amid growing scrutiny in Europe

Advertisement WorldEuropeSocial media Musk’s X office in Paris raided by police amid growing scrutiny in Europe Inti Landauro and Sudip Kar-Gupta February 4, 2026 — 4:15am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A Key points Musk and former CEO summoned to give evidence on April 20 Investigation into alleged algorithmic bias began in early 2025 Inquiry since widened to include AI chatbot Grok UK privacy watchdog also launches investigation into Grok Paris: 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 US 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. The exterior of the building housing the offices of X. Paris police focusing on cyber-crime searched the social media company’s offices in relation to an investigation into the content on X and its AI chatbot, Grok. Getty Images 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. Advertisement 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. Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino were summoned to a hearing on April 20. Other X staff were also summoned as witnesses. Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. The annual Davos gathering of political leaders, top executives and celebrities runs from Jan. 19-23. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg Bloomberg There was no immediate comment from X. In July, Musk denied the initial accusations and said French prosecutors were launching a “politically-motivated criminal investigation”. “At this stage, the conduct of this investigation is part of a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French laws, insofar as it operates on national territory,” the prosecutor’s office said. Advertisement Such summons are mandatory, though they are harder to enforce on people who do not live in France. After such a hearing, authorities can decide to either shelve or continue the probe, and potentially put suspects in custody. Widening probes into X Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, meanwhile, said it was investigating the xAI chatbot, following reports that Grok had been used to generate non-consensual sexual imagery of individuals, including children. Britain’s media regulator Ofcom said separately it was setting out the next steps in its investigation into X launched last month, though provided few details. Advertisement Ofcom is seeking to assess if the company has done enough to mitigate the risk of sexual deepfakes spreading on its social media platform. But it has said it was not investigating xAI, which operates the Grok chatbot, as it falls beyond the scope of current law. Related Article Elon Musk Elon Musk’s Grok AI floods X with sexualised photos of women and minors Last week the European Union launched an investigation into X too, seeking to assess whether it disseminated illegal content, following public outcry over the spreading of manipulated sexualised images by Grok. The chatbot continues to generate sexualised images of people even when users explicitly warn that the subjects do not consent, Reuters has found. xAI put some restrictions on Grok’s image generation function in response to the backlash last month. Advertisement The Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit is conducting the investigation in France, together with the French police’s own cybercrime unit and Europol. The unit previously arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov in 2024 over charges including complicity in organised crime carried out on the messaging app, charges his lawyer has described as “absurd”. The prosecutor’s office said it launched the investigation after being contacted by a lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms in X were likely to have distorted the operation of an automated data processing system. “Glad to see that my complaint from January 2025 is yielding...

Musk’s X office in Paris raided by police amid growing scrutiny in Europe

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