French prosecutors said they have opened an investigation into Elon Musk’s social platform X, seeking possible charges involving child sexual abuse images and sexually explicit deepfakes. In a statement carried by the Associated Press, prosecutors said the Paris public prosecutor’s office opened the inquiry on charges including complicity in possessing and distributing child sexual abuse images and unlawfully collecting personal data.
Prosecutors said the probe also covers alleged dissemination of non-consensual images or other content, as well as denial of crimes against humanity. They did not say when charges might be brought, but they said the investigation is ongoing.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office said it opened the case Wednesday, and that it is examining alleged “complicity” and related conduct as part of what prosecutors described as an organized group, alongside other charges. Prosecutors also said the inquiry includes allegations tied to an automated data processing system and to what they described as the platform’s handling of harmful content.
The investigation comes less than three weeks after Musk and Linda Yaccarino, who served as chief executive of X from May 2023 until July 2025, were summoned for “voluntary interviews” to discuss the allegations. Prosecutors said Musk and Yaccarino did not show up, but said the lack of attendance would not stop the investigation.
Investigators said Musk was summoned after a search took place in February at French premises of X. They said the search was part of an investigation opened in January 2025 by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office, and that Musk and Yaccarino were invited in their capacities as managers of X at the time of the events prosecutors are examining.
French prosecutors said they opened the investigation after reports from a French lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms on X likely distorted the functioning of an automated data-processing system. They said it later expanded after Grok, the AI system available through X, generated posts that prosecutors described as denying the Holocaust, a crime in France, and spreading sexually explicit deepfakes.
Prosecutors described Grok as built by xAI, and said it sparked global outrage earlier this year after it generated a torrent of sexualized non-consensual deepfake images in response to requests from X users. They also said the AI generated a widely shared post in French that referenced gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp being designed for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than for mass murder—language prosecutors said is long associated with Holocaust denial.
The Associated Press report said that after later posts, the chatbot reversed itself, acknowledged that its earlier reply was wrong, said the response had been deleted, and pointed to historical evidence that Zyklon B was used to kill more than 1 million people in Auschwitz gas chambers. Prosecutors said the broader inquiry includes allegations tied to denial of crimes against humanity as well as the deepfake content.
The report said prosecutors notified U.S. authorities in March, alerting the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Paris office said the “controversy” around sexually explicit deepfakes generated by Grok may have been deliberately orchestrated to artificially boost the value of X and xAI, potentially constituting criminal offenses.
X and its parent company SpaceX did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment, the Associated Press reported.