Musk summoned as cybercrime officers raid X offices in France

X owner Elon Musk has been summoned to a “voluntary interview” as cybercrime authorities searched the offices of his social media network in France.

Paris public prosecutor’s office disclosed this in a statement, noting that the offices were raided on Tuesday, February 3, 2026.

The operation, which involves the European Union (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 office said: “A search is being conducted today at the French premises of the X platform.

“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.”

Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July 2025, after two years at the helm of the company.

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Paris cybercrime prosecutors called for the police probe in July 2025 to investigate suspected crimes – including manipulating and extracting data from automated systems “as part of a criminal gang” – after receiving two complaints in January 2025.

One of those came from Eric Bothorel, an MP from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, who complained of “reduced diversity of voices and options” and of “personal interventions” by Musk in the platform’s management since he took it over in 2022.

The investigation, according to AFP, was then broadened after additional reports criticised the AI chatbot Grok’s role in disseminating Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes on X.

In late January, the EU hit X with an investigation over Grok’s generation of sexualised deepfake images of women and minors.

The EU move comes despite repeated US threats of retaliation against enforcement of tech rules that President Donald Trump’s administration says curb free speech and unfairly target US firms.

The Star