The French headquarters of Elon Musk's social media platform X have been raided by the Paris cybercrime unit as part of an investigation into alleged cybercrime, prosecutors announced on Tuesday. The raid, conducted jointly with Europol, comes amid growing European scrutiny of social media firms.
The Paris prosecutor's office stated that Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino have been summoned for voluntary questioning in April, in their capacity as managers of the platform at the time of the alleged offences. Yaccarino resigned in July last year.
The investigation, launched in January last year, initially focused on suspected abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction. It has since been widened to include complaints about X's artificial intelligence tool, Grok, and alleged offences such as complicity in the possession and distribution of child abuse images, violation of image rights through sexualised deepfakes, and denial of crimes against humanity.
The raid follows a complaint from centre-right MP Éric Bothorel, who alleged that biased algorithms on X distorted its data processing system and reduced diversity of voices. Prosecutors said in November they were expanding the probe to include Grok's alleged Holocaust denial.
X responded with a statement calling the raid "an abusive act of law enforcement theatre designed to achieve illegitimate political objectives." The company denied any wrongdoing and said the allegations were baseless.
The action comes as European governments harden attitudes towards social media. Greece is reportedly close to announcing a social media ban for children under 15, while Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has promised to protect children from the "digital wild west" and criticised Musk for amplifying disinformation.
