French police search X office in Paris, summon Elon Musk for questioning

French police, working alongside Europol, searched the Paris office of X, the Paris prosecutor's office confirmed on Tuesday.

The search is part of an ongoing investigation that was opened in 2025 into allegations of "fraudulent extraction of data" from an automated data-processing system carried out "by an organised group," according to French authorities.

Prosecutors from France's cybercrime unit said the investigation has since widened to include other alleged offences. These now include complicity in the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, violations of privacy laws, and Holocaust denial.

The probe's expansion comes as X and its owner, Elon Musk, face mounting criticism over the platform's handling of content generated by its Grok AI system. Critics have accused the company of allowing Grok to be used to create nonconsensual imagery, including child sexual abuse material, involving individuals depicted on the platform.

Musk, who acquired X — formerly known as Twitter — in 2022, has been summoned for questioning in connection with the investigation. Former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino was also summoned to appear on April 20, according to the prosecutor's announcement. In addition, unnamed X employees have been called in for questioning during the same week.

When contacted for comment, X spokesperson Rosemarie Esposito pointed to a statement published on the company's Global Government Affairs account on X. In that post, the company said that "the allegations underlying today's raid are baseless and X categorically denies any wrongdoing."

A spokesperson for eMed, where Yaccarino is now chief executive, did not respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch.

In a separate statement, Maylis De Roeck, a spokesperson for the Paris prosecutor's office, confirmed the search and explained the authorities' position. "The Public Prosecutor's Office's objective is ultimately to ensure platform X's compliance with French law, given that it operates within the national territory," she said.