The French offices of Elon Musk's X have been raided by the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit, as part of an investigation into suspected offences including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography.
The prosecutor's office also said both Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino had been summoned to appear at hearings in April.
In a separate development, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced a probe into Musk's AI tool, Grok, over its potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content. X is yet to respond to either investigation - the BBC has approached it for comment.
It has previously characterised the French investigation as an attack on free speech.
The investigation began in January 2025 when French prosecutors started looking into content recommended by X's algorithm, before being widened in July that year to include Musk's controversial AI chatbot, Grok.
Following today's raid, French prosecutors say they are now investigating whether X has broken the law across multiple areas.
Among potential crimes it said it would investigate were complicity in possession or organised distribution of images of children of a pornographic nature, infringement of people's image rights with sexual deepfakes and fraudulent data extraction by an organised group.
Meanwhile, UK authorities have given an update on their investigations into sexual deepfakes created by Grok and shared on X.
The images - often made using real images of women without their consent - prompted a barrage of criticism in January from victims, online safety campaigners and politicians.
In an update on Tuesday, Ofcom stated they are treating the issue as “a matter of urgency.” However, they admitted being unable to investigate the creation of illegal images by Grok without adequate legal authority over chatbots.
The ICO stated it was launching a probe into the data handling practices of Grok, emphasizing serious concerns related to privacy violations and the generation of unauthorized intimate images.
Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, criticized the investigation, stating France's actions are hostile towards platforms that allow freedom of expression.
