"French headquarters of Elon Musk’s X raided by Paris cybercrime unit"

Prosecutors have raided the French headquarters of Elon Musk’s social media platform X and summoned the tech billionaire and the company’s former chief executive for questioning as part of an investigation into alleged cybercrime…

The Paris raid is part of an investigation launched in January last year into the suspected abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction, which the prosecutor’s office said it had widened to cover complaints about X’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok.

It said the alleged offences it was investigating now included complicity in the possession and organised distribution of child abuse images, violation of image rights through sexualised deepfakes, and denial of crimes against humanity...

X said in a statement: “We are disappointed by this development, but we are not surprised. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s office widely publicized the raid—making clear that today’s action was an abusive act of law enforcement theater designed to achieve illegitimate political objectives.

“The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office is plainly attempting to exert pressure on X’s senior management in the United States by targeting our French entity and employees, who are not the focus of this investigation.

“The allegations underlying today’s raid are baseless and X categorically denies any wrongdoing. Today’s staged raid reinforces our conviction that this investigation distorts French law, circumvents due process, and endangers free speech…”