French cybercrime police search X’s Paris offices and summon Elon Musk for questioning in a probe into alleged algorithmic interference in French politics.
PARIS: French cybercrime authorities searched the Paris offices of social media platform X on Tuesday.
The operation, involving EU police agency Europol, is part of an investigation opened in January 2025 into whether X’s algorithm was used to interfere in French politics.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office said it had also summoned X owner Elon Musk for a voluntary interview.
“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,” it stated.
Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July last year after two years leading the company.
The investigation was launched following two complaints in January 2025.
It was later broadened after additional reports criticised X’s AI chatbot Grok for disseminating Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes.
One complaint came from MP Eric Bothorel of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party.
He complained of “reduced diversity of voices and options” and Musk’s “personal interventions” in platform management.
The prosecutor’s office denounced alleged biased algorithms that may have “distorted the operation of an automated data processing system”.
X’s France director Laurent Buanec pushed back against the investigation in January 2025.
He said X had “strict, clear and public rules” protecting it from hate speech and disinformation.
