French prosecutors summon Elon Musk over sexualised AI deepfakes on X

[ad_1] Billionaire Elon Musk has been summoned for a voluntary interview in Paris on Monday as a part of a French probe into his social media platform X, although it stays unclear if he'll seem.

French authorities issued a summons for Musk in February as a part of an investigation, launched in January 2025, into allegations that X's algorithm was used to intervene in French politics.

The probe was later expanded to incorporate an investigation into X's AI chatbot Grok's dissemination of Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes.

In early February, French prosecutors searched the Paris places of work of X, in what the social media big – which has denied any wrongdoing – slammed as "politicised" raids and an "abusive judicial act".

On the time, Paris prosecutors additionally summoned Musk and then-CEO Linda Yaccarino for voluntary interviews because the "de facto and de jure managers of the X platform on the time of the occasions", a transfer Musk known as a "political assault".

Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July final yr after two years on the helm of the corporate.

In February, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau mentioned X workers had additionally been summoned to look between April 20 and 24 "to be heard as witnesses".

However whether or not or not these invited for voluntary questioning seem wouldn't be "an impediment to the continuation of the investigation", the Paris prosecutor's workplace mentioned on Saturday.

Officers haven't supplied any particulars on the placement or time of Musk's scheduled interview.

The French investigation focuses on a number of suspected legal offences together with complicity in possessing baby sexual abuse materials and denial of crimes towards humanity.

The social media firm in July known as the probe "politically motivated".

'Severe considerations' The French investigation comes as a part of a broader worldwide backlash towards Grok after it emerged that customers might sexualise photos of ladies and kids utilizing easy textual content prompts resembling "put her in a bikini" or "take away her garments".

Watch extra International anger over Grok undressing girls on-line

It generated an estimated three million sexualised photos – largely of ladies, although additionally 23,000 that appeared to depict youngsters – in 11 days, the Middle for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit watchdog, mentioned in late January.

In a separate investigation, Britain's information regulator in February launched investigations into Musk's X and xAI over "critical considerations" concerning whether or not the businesses complied with private information legal guidelines when it got here to Grok's era of sexualised deepfakes.