French authorities just escalated their legal battle with X, raiding the company's Paris office and summoning owner Elon Musk for questioning. The Paris prosecutor's office announced Tuesday it's expanding a criminal investigation into the social platform to include allegations of child sexual abuse material distribution, privacy violations, and Holocaust denial. Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been ordered to appear for questioning on April 20, marking one of the most aggressive regulatory moves against a major tech platform in recent memory.
X is facing its most serious legal challenge yet in Europe. French police and Europol officers descended on the company's Paris office Tuesday morning, executing a search warrant as part of what prosecutors describe as an expanding criminal investigation into the social media platform's alleged role in distributing child sexual abuse material.
The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed the raid in a statement, revealing that the original 2025 investigation into "fraudulent extraction of data" has now ballooned to include far graver allegations. The expanded probe now covers complicity in possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, privacy violations, and Holocaust denial, according to the official announcement.
Elon Musk, who acquired the platform in 2022 for $44 billion, and Linda Yaccarino, who served as X's CEO until joining health tech platform eMed last year, have both been summoned to appear before French authorities on April 20. Several unnamed X employees received similar summons for that same week, suggesting prosecutors are casting a wide net in their investigation.
The timing isn't coincidental. The expanded investigation comes as X grapples with mounting criticism over its Grok AI chatbot's ability to generate non-consensual sexual imagery, including depictions of minors. California's attorney general launched a separate probe last month after reports surfaced that users were exploiting Grok to create child abuse material, raising serious questions about X's content moderation systems.