The Paris prosecutor's office announced on Wednesday that it has formally opened an investigation into Elon Musk and his social media platform X, with charges including dissemination of child sexual abuse images, deepfake pornographic content, and organized manipulation of automated data processing systems. According to the Associated Press, the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor's office launched the investigation in January 2025, conducted a search of X's offices in France in February, and subsequently summoned Musk for questioning.
The investigation focuses on allegations that X conspired to possess and distribute child sexual abuse images, as well as the generation of pornographic deepfakes by its AI system Grok. In March, prosecutors alerted the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, arguing that the controversy surrounding explicit deepfakes created by Grok may have been deliberately orchestrated to artificially inflate the valuations of X and xAI, potentially constituting a criminal offense. Additionally, X is accused of illegally collecting personal data and denying crimes against humanity.
