X’s French offices raided by Paris cybercrime unit

(CNN) French police raided the Paris offices of Elon Musk’s X Tuesday and summoned the tech billionaire for questioning as part of a widening probe into the social media company and its AI chatbot Grok.

The search was linked to an investigation France opened in January 2025, the prosecutor’s office said Tuesday, adding that its cybercrime unit conducted the raid with help from Europol.

Both X chairman Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino have been summoned to appear at hearings in April, while X employees will be questioned as witnesses, according to the Paris prosecutor.

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the investigation, which initially focused on suspected abuse of algorithms, had been broadened to include Grok’s “sexual deepfakes” and the circulation of “Holocaust denial content.”

“The allegations underlying today’s raid are baseless and X categorically denies any wrongdoing,” X’s Global Government Affairs Team posted in a statement on the social platform Tuesday afternoon, adding that it is “committed to defending its fundamental rights and the rights of its users.”

The company said it is “disappointed by this development” and called the raid “an abusive act of law enforcement theater.”

Musk also called it a “political attack” in a post on X.

X did not respond to CNN’s earlier request for comment. The company has previously denied any wrongdoing and in July called the French investigation “politically motivated” and an attack on free speech.

Last week the European Commission launched a probe into Grok following criticism of its ability to produce sexually explicit images. Scrutiny of that function came to a head late last year, when it emerged the chatbot had produced a flood of digitally undressed images – including of women and children – at the behest of users.

Prosecutors in the French capital said they would examine a raft of potential crimes, including complicity in the possession and dissemination of child pornographic images and the breach of a person’s image rights with sexually explicit deepfakes.

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