PARIS: French authorities summoned billionaire Elon Musk to a “voluntary interview” and searched the local offices of his social media network X on Tuesday in a probe into alleged political interference and sexual deepfakes, prosecutors said.

The operation comes as both Britain and the European Union have opened separate probes into the creation of sexualised deepfakes of women and children by Musk’s AI chatbot Grok.

The French investigation, which began in January 2025 over allegations X’s algorithm was used to interfere in French politics, now also includes a probe into Grok’s dissemination of Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes.

“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,” the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July last year after two years at the helm of the company. Authorities were conducting a search on Tuesday morning at X’s French premises as part of the investigation, the prosecutor’s office added.

EU police agency Europol said it provided on-the-ground support, deploying an analyst, for Tuesday’s raid. The French probe focuses on several suspected criminal offences including complicity in possessing child sexual abuse material and denial of crimes against humanity.

X employees have also been summoned to appear between April 20 and 24 “to be heard as witnesses”, said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, whose office announced in a final message on X it would be leaving the platform.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2026