\n<\/p>\n
PARIS (AP) \u2014 Elon Musk has been summoned to Paris on Monday, where investigators are looking into allegations of misconduct related to the social media platform X, including the spread of child sexual abuse material and deepfake content.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s richest man and Linda Yaccarino \u2014 the former CEO of X \u2014 have been summoned for \u201cvoluntary interviews,” while other employees of the platform are scheduled to be heard as witnesses throughout this week, the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear whether Musk and Yaccarino will travel to Paris. A spokesperson for X did not respond to questions from The Associated Press and Yaccarino\u2019s current company, eMed, did not answer a request sent to the press email.<\/p>\n
French prosecutors also suspect that controversy around the platform\u2019s AI system Grok’s deepfakes was concocted to boost the value of Musk-owned companies ahead of a key market listing, and alerted U.S. authorities. Musk welcomed a report that U.S. justice officials refused to help French investigators, posting on X, \u201cThis needs to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk was summoned after a search took place in February at the French premises of X as part of an investigation opened in January 2025 by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office. Musk and Yaccarino have been invited in their capacities as managers of X at the time of the events investigated. Yaccarino was CEO from May 2023 until July 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese voluntary interviews with the executives are intended to allow them to present their position regarding the facts and, where appropriate, the compliance measures they plan to implement,\u201d prosecutors said. \u201cAt this stage, the conduct of this investigation is part of a constructive approach, with the ultimate objective of ensuring that platform X complies with French law, insofar as it operates within the national territory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether Musk would risk sanctions if he skipped the hearing, the Paris prosecutor’s office declined to comment.<\/p>\n
French authorities opened their investigation after reports from a French lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms on X likely distorted the functioning of an automated data processing system. It expanded after the AI system, Grok, generated posts that allegedly denied the Holocaust, a crime in France, and spread sexually explicit deepfakes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s looking into alleged \u201ccomplicity\u201d in possessing and spreading pornographic images of minors, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized group, among other charges.<\/p>\n
Grok, which was built by xAI and is available through X, sparked global outrage this year after it pumped out a torrent of sexualized nonconsensual deepfake images in response to requests from X users.<\/p>\n
Grok also wrote in a widely shared post in French that gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp were designed for \u201cdisinfection with Zyklon B against typhus\u201d rather than for mass murder \u2014 language long associated with Holocaust denial.<\/p>\n
In later posts on X, the chatbot reversed itself and acknowledged that its earlier reply was wrong, saying it had been deleted, and pointed to historical evidence that Zyklon B was used to kill more than 1 million people in Auschwitz gas chambers.<\/p>\n
In March, the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office alerted the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) \u2014 the U.S. federal agency responsible for regulating and overseeing financial markets \u2014 suggesting “that the controversy surrounding sexually explicit deepfakes generated by Grok may have been deliberately orchestrated to artificially boost the value of the companies X and xAI \u2014 potentially constituting criminal offenses,” prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
The Paris prosecutor\u2019s office said this could have been done “ahead of the planned June 2026 stock market listing of the new entity formed by the merger of Space X and xAI, at a time when company X was clearly losing momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Justice Department told French law enforcement authorities it wouldn\u2019t facilitate their efforts to investigate Musk\u2019s X. The newspaper reported that the Justice Department\u2019s Office of International Affairs, in a two-page letter last week, accused the French of inappropriately using its justice system to interfere with an American business.<\/p>\n
The letter also said France\u2019s requests for U.S. assistance \u201cconstitute an effort to entangle the United States in a politically charged criminal proceeding aimed at wrongfully regulating through prosecution the business activities of a social media platform.\u201d<\/p>\n
French judicial authorities didn\u2019t respond to requests for comments.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it has lodged a new complaint against X with the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office targeting “the platform\u2019s policies that allow disinformation to flourish.”<\/p>\n
\u201cDisinformation campaigns are flooding X, some of which have accumulated several hundred thousand views. Although the staff at Elon Musk\u2019s platform are well aware of the situation, this has not stopped them from responding to RSF\u2019s repeated alerts with automated refusals to remove the content in question,” RSF said. \u201cThis is a deliberate policy instated by X, and it is incompatible with the public\u2019s right to reliable information.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press reporter Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n