Musk calls Paris prosecutors raid of X office in France a 'political attack'

03 Feb 2026, 22:08 by Jane Moore, https://www.thejournal.ie/author/jane-moore/ · TheJournal.ie

LAST UPDATE | 17 hrs ago

TECH TYCOON ELON Musk has criticised French authorities’ raid of offices of his social media network X, amid a probe into alleged political interference and sexual deepfakes.

“This is a political attack,” the billionaire wrote on social media, adding in a separate X post that authorities in France should instead focus on targeting sex criminals.

French authorities have summoned Elon Musk to answer questions as part of their investigation into whether his social media platform X had been used to interfere in the country’s politics.

The company’s offices in France were also raided this morning, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed.

It said the search was conducted by the cybercrime unit with the assistance of EU police agency Europol.

“Summons for voluntary interviews on April 20, 2026, in Paris have been sent to Mr. Elon Musk and Ms. Linda Yaccarino, in their capacity as de facto and de jure managers of the X platform at the time of the events,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July last year, after two years at the helm of the company.

Employees were also summoned as witnesses.

“The conduct of this investigation is currently part of a constructive approach, with the objective of ultimately ensuring the compliance of the X platform with French law, insofar as it operates on national territory,” the office said.

The investigation was opened following two complaints in January 2025 and then broadened after additional reports criticised the AI chatbot Grok for its role in disseminating Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes, the prosecutor’s office said.

One of the complaints came from Eric Bothorel, an MP from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, who complained of “reduced diversity of voices and options” and Musk’s “personal interventions” in the platform’s management since he took it over.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office at the time confirmed the investigation, denouncing the alleged biased algorithms which may have “distorted the operation of an automated data processing system”.