France conducts raids at X’s French offices as part of deepfake probe

French prosecutors searched the Paris offices of Elon Musk's X as part of an investigation into alleged political interference and sexual deepfakes. The search came as both Britain and the European Union have opened investigations into the creation of sexualised deepfakes of women and children by Musk's AI chatbot Grok.

The proposal by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to become the latest country to ban social media for under 16s enraged Musk who on Tuesday called Sanchez "a tyrant and traitor" to Spain's people.

The social media giant, has however slammed it as "politicized" raids.

"The Paris Public Prosecutor's office widely publicized the raid - making clear that today's action was an abusive act of law enforcement theater designed to achieve illegitimate political objectives rather than advance legitimate law enforcement goals," X's Global Government Affairs team posted on the platform.

"The allegations underlying today's raid are baseless and X categorically denies any wrongdoing."

French authorities conducted a search on Tuesday at X's French premises as part of an investigation, which began in January 2025, over allegations that X's algorithm was used to interfere in French politics. It now also includes a probe into the Grok AI tool's dissemination of Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes.

The Paris prosecutor's office said that "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" being investigated.

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