Musk vs France: How X became a target for Paris

daniel chester french investigators feature summoned X possessor Elon Musk for a “voluntary question” which they say could drop light on allegations that the platform was involved in the spread of AI-generated child sexual abuse images and deepfake content.

The French authorities have had a long-running feud with the US-based billionaire, casting his social media platform as a potential threat to democracy, while Musk says he is defending freedom of speech.

According to the Wall Street Journal, France attempted to convince the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to cooperate in the probe – only to be rebutted over what the DOJ suspected was an attempt “to entangle the United States in a politically charged criminal proceeding.”

Here is what we know about the Musk-France feud so far.

The probe dates back to January 2025, when a formal complaint against X was lodged by a French MP and a public official. According to reports at the time, the documents cited a “major modification in the algorithm used by the X platform,” resulting in a surge of “hateful, racist, anti-LGBTQ, or homophobic” content designed to “skew democratic debate in France”.

Around the same time, Musk was openly endorsing European right-wing parties, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Reform UK, and France’s National Rally.

A formal criminal investigation over alleged algorithm manipulation and illicit data extraction was opened in July 2025 and handed to the national police.

X denied any wrongdoing, describing the probe as an attack on free speech that distorted domestic law to “serve a political agenda.” The platform also complained that the authorities classified it as an “organized gang” and said it would not cooperate, adding that prosecutors were steering the investigation toward a predetermined outcome.

The probe has since been expanded to include the following allegations:
• Complicity in the possession of pornographic images of minors
• Complicity in the organized distribution of these images
• Defamation of personal image through sexual deepfakes
• Denial of crimes against humanity (Holocaust denial)
• Fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system by an organized group
• Falsification of the operation of an automated data processing system by an organized group
• Operating an illegal online platform by an organized group

X found itself in hot water in late 2025 and early 2026 when the Grok AI assistant generated an estimated 3 million sexualized images, including thousands that appeared to depict children. Grok’s ‘spicy mode’ reportedly sexualized public figures such as Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and former US Vice President Kamala Harris.

Some users asked Grok to edit photos of women into sexualized poses and revealing clothing, and others asked it to add blood and bruising; the chatbot publicly posted these graphic images in response.

In response to the backlash, in January, X restricted Grok’s ability to edit photos of real people and show them in revealing clothing in jurisdictions where it is illegal. According to NBC, however, Grok still continues to fulfill these requests in some cases.

In November 2025, Grok answered questions about common myths surrounding the Holocaust in a thread under a post by a convicted French Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi militant, writing that the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp were designed for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than mass murder – effectively denying well-established Nazi crimes.

Grok later backpedaled, calling its statement ‘false’ and attributing it to “an anomalous glitch in an early output.” Musk explained the incident by saying that Grok “was too compliant to user prompts” and the issue was being dealt with.

The authorities in France – which has strict Holocaust-denial laws – expanded the probe to include the incident.

French President Emmanuel Macron has made no secret of his intention to introduce more guardrails for regulating social media. In February, in one of his most brazen takes on the matter, he blasted social media platforms for “having no clue about how their algorithm is made.”

“The democratic consequences of this bias could be huge,” he said, adding: “Free speech is pure bulls**t if nobody knows how you are guided to this so-called free speech, especially when it is guided from one hate speech to another.”

He has also accused X of being “dominated by far-right content,” suggesting that the platform is no longer neutral because of the political affiliation of its owner.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the DOJ told the French law enforcement authorities that it would not facilitate their efforts to investigate X. The letter seen by the outlet argued that the investigation “seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas,” and that French requests for US assistance “constitute an effort to entangle the United States in a politically charged criminal proceeding.”

The Paris prosecutor’s office said it has no knowledge of the DOJ letter.

The Trump administration has long criticized the EU over what it describes as “digital censorship” and “regulatory suffocation” – including the bloc’s strict digital market guidelines, which the administration claims discriminate against US-based tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta.

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