Paris Prosecutor Summons Elon Musk After Raid on Xs French Headquarters

French prosecutors on Tuesday raided the Paris offices of Elon Musk’s social media platform X and summoned the tech billionaire and the company’s former chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, for questioning as part of a widening investigation into alleged cybercrime and the dissemination of illegal content.

In a statement posted on X, the Paris prosecutor’s office said the search was being carried out by its cybercrime unit alongside France’s national police cyber division and Europol, Europe’s central crime intelligence agency. The prosecutor’s office added that it would cease publishing updates on the platform.

The statement says Musk and Yaccarino have been summoned for “voluntary questioning” in April in their capacities as the “de facto and de jure managers of X at the time of the alleged offenses.” Yaccarino stepped down as X’s chief executive in July last year. Despite being described as voluntary, such summonses are mandatory under French law, though they can prove challenging to enforce for individuals, like Musk and Yaccarino, who are based outside the country. French employees of X have also been summoned to testify as witnesses during hearings scheduled to run from April 20 to 24.

The raid is part of an investigation launched in January 2025 following a complaint filed by center-right French lawmaker Éric Bothorel. Bothorel alleged that following Musk’s acquisition of the company in 2022, changes to X’s algorithms distorted the platform’s automated data processing systems, making X more biased, reducing the diversity of voices on the service, and amplifying extreme or harmful political content.

Prosecutors said the scope of the investigation has since expanded to include complaints related to X’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok. The AI tool has come underfire for alleged complicity in the creation and distribution of child sexual abuse material, violations of image rights through sexualized deepfakes, and its alleged use in creating Holocaust denial content. In France, as in many European countries, Holocaust denial is a crime. The European Union has opened a separate investigation into Grok’s role in the production and dissemination of such material.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said the goal of the investigation was to ensure that X complies with French law while operating on national territory.

X said last summer that it did not intend to comply with what it described as “politically motivated” demands from French prosecutors, denying all allegations. The company has said the investigation distorted French law to advance a political agenda and restrict free speech, adding that it would defend its rights, protect user data, and resist political censorship.

Europol said it was supporting the inquiry through its European Cybercrime Centre and had deployed a specialist to Paris. The investigation concerns a range of suspected criminal offenses linked to the functioning and use of the platform, including the dissemination of illegal content, Europol said, adding that it stands ready to continue assisting French authorities as the case progresses.

The French action comes amid a broader hardening of European attitudes toward social media platforms, with several governments weighing tighter restrictions and accountability measures, particularly around child protection and harmful online content. French lawmakers last week passed a bill to ban social media use for under-15s, following a similar move by Australia. Other European countries, including Greece and Spain, are reportedly considering a similar national ban.