The Paris prosecutor’s office has recently taken significant legal action, formally seeking to bring criminal charges against social media platform X and its owner, Elon Musk. According to the Associated Press, the case involves child sexual abuse images and deepfake content on the platform. The investigation was initiated in January 2025 by the cybercrime division of the Paris prosecutor’s office, and in February of the same year, law enforcement conducted a search of X’s premises in France.
Prosecutors noted that the scope of the investigation has expanded to include potential financial crimes stemming from AI-generated content. In March 2025, the Paris prosecutor’s office notified the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, suggesting that the controversy surrounding explicit deepfake content generated by X’s AI model, Grok, may have been manipulated to artificially inflate the valuations of X and xAI — a move that could constitute a criminal offense. French prosecutors are now seeking formal charges against both Musk and X, though the specific counts have yet to be confirmed by the court.
