Prosecutors in Paris said they asked Elon Musk to appear for questioning as part of an investigation into the distribution of sexual deepfakes and Holocaust denial content, after searching X's offices in the French capital early Tuesday.
The search was carried out by the prosecutor's cybercrime unit, in partnership with French police's own cybercrime unit and Europol, the office said on X.
A voluntary summons was issued for Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino to appear and answer questions about the platform's adherence to French law.
The prosecutor's office said it was investigating potential criminal offenses including complicity in the possession and distribution of "child pornography images," the violation of personal rights through the generation of "sexual deepfakes," the denial of "crimes against humanity" and the alleged fraudulent extraction of data from an automated processing system, as part of an organized gang.
"The voluntary interviews with the managers should enable them to explain their position on the facts and, where applicable, the compliance measures envisaged," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Musk and Yaccarino have been summoned to appear in Paris in the week of April 20. It's unclear what legal powers, if any, prosecutors have to compel them to appear.
The Paris prosecutor's office added that it was shutting its own account on X and would communicate on LinkedIn and Instagram instead.
Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, said later in a statement that the investigation concerned “a range of suspected criminal offences linked to the functioning and use of the platform, including the dissemination of illegal content and other forms of online criminal activity.”
X did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment.
But the company’s global government affairs account wrote, "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 rather than advance legitimate law enforcement goals rooted in the fair and impartial administration of justice."
Sharing the government affairs account's post, Musk wrote on his own X account, "This is a political attack."
X has long faced political pressure from European countries and from the European Union itself for its alleged influence on elections.
Last year, the E.U. fined X the equivalent of $140 million for failing to combat hate speech and misinformation. Last month, the 27-nation bloc launched a formal investigation into sexual deepfakes created by X's Grok chatbot.
The probe came a day after Musk said Monday that SpaceX has acquired his artificial intelligence startup xAI in a record-setting deal that combined the rocket and satellite company with the maker of the Grok chatbot.
“This marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in SpaceX and xAI’s mission: scaling to make a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!” Musk said.
In the United Kingdom, the information commissioner's office said Tuesday it had begun its own investigation into X and the processing of personal information in the generation of deepfakes.
“The reports about Grok raise deeply troubling questions about how people’s personal data has been used to generate intimate or sexualized images without their knowledge or consent, and whether the necessary safeguards were put in place to prevent this,” William Malcom, an executive director at the office, said in a statement.
This follows the launch last month of a separate probe by Ofcom, the British communications regulator.
