Elon Musk is summoned to appear before French prosecutors after X office raid, and the UK is joining in with a fresh investigation

French authorities just took a major step in their investigation into X, raiding the company’s Paris offices and summoning both Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino for hearings scheduled in April, as reported by the BBC. The raid was conducted by the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit as part of a widening investigation into suspected offenses like unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography.

Unsurprisingly, X and its leadership reacted with immediate fury. Writing on X, Musk called the raid a “political attack.” The company itself released a statement saying it was “disappointed” but “not surprised,” going on to accuse the Paris Public Prosecutor’s office of what they called an “abusive act.” X denies any wrongdoing whatsoever and insists that the raid “endangers free speech.”

Former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino, who left the firm last year, was even more direct in her assessment. She took to X to accuse French prosecutors of carrying out “a political vendetta against Americans.” She certainly wasn’t mincing words, adding: “To be clear: they are lying.”

The investigation in France has been ramping up for a while now

It originally started in January 2025 when French prosecutors began looking into content recommended by X’s algorithm. By July 2025, the scope had widened significantly to include Grok, Musk’s highly controversial AI chatbot. Following this raid, prosecutors are now investigating a serious list of potential crimes.

These include complicity in the possession or organized distribution of pornographic images of children, infringement of people’s image rights via sexual deepfakes, and fraudulent data extraction carried out by an organized group. That list is absolutely brutal for X’s reputation, especially given the serious allegations involving minors and consent.

It seems the UK isn’t going to let this slide either, as they’ve announced fresh investigations into Grok. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced its own probe into Grok over the AI tool’s “potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content.”

These images, often created using real pictures of women without their consent, caused a massive outcry in January. Victims, online safety campaigners, and politicians all criticized the practice, forcing X to intervene and prevent the practice after UK authorities, including Ofcom, launched initial investigations.

Ofcom provided an update, confirming it is continuing to investigate the platform and treating the matter with urgency. However, they admitted they couldn’t investigate the creation of illegal images by Grok in this specific case because they don’t currently have sufficient powers relating to chatbots.

That’s where the ICO stepped in. The ICO is launching its own probe, working with Ofcom, focusing specifically on the processing of personal data related to Grok. William Malcolm, the ICO’s executive director for regulatory risk and innovation, stated: “The reports about Grok raise deeply troubling questions about how people’s personal data has been used to generate intimate or sexualised images without their knowledge or consent, and whether the necessary safeguards were put in place to prevent this.”

It’s worth noting that the European Commission also announced an investigation into X’s parent company, xAI, in late January over concerns about the images.