Newsman: French police raided the offices of Elon Musk’s social media network X on Feb. 3, and prosecutors ordered the tech billionaire to face questions in April related to a widening investigation into the platform, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
The raid is linked to a yearlong investigation into suspected abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction by X or its executives.
However, in a statement the Paris prosecutor’s office said it was widening that investigation following complaints over the functioning of X’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok. “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.
The prosecutor’s cybercrime unit is conducting the investigation together with the French police’s own cybercrime unit and Europol, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation.
The Paris 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.
The prosecutor’s office also said it was leaving the X social media platform and would communicate on LinkedIn and Instagram from now on. LinkedIn belongs to Microsoft and Instagram to Meta.
The 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, are summoned to a hearing on April 20. Other X staff are also summoned as witnesses.
In July, Musk denied the initial accusations and said French prosecutors were launching a “politically-motivated criminal investigation”.
