PARIS, FEB 4: French prosecutors on Tuesday searched the Paris offices of Elon Musk’s X as part of an investigation into alleged political interference and sexual deepfakes and summoned Musk in what the social media giant slammed as “politicized” raids.

The search came as both Britain and the European Union have opened investigations into the creation of sexualised deepfakes of women and children by Musk’s AI chatbot Grok.

A proposal by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to become the latest country to ban social media for under 16s enraged Musk who on Tuesday called Sanchez “a tyrant and traitor” to Spain’s people.

French authorities conducted a search on Tuesday at X’s French premises as part of an investigation, which began in January 2025, over allegations that X’s algorithm was used to interfere in French politics. It now also includes a probe into the Grok AI tool’s dissemination of Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes.

EU police agency Europol said it provided an analyst to give on-the-ground support in the search.

                  “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,” X’s Global Government Affairs team posted on the platform.

                  “The allegations underlying today’s raid are baseless and X categorically denies any wrongdoing.”

                  The Paris prosecutor’s office said that “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” being investigated.

                  Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July last year after two years at the helm of the company.

                  The French probe focuses on alleged 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.

                  Telegram founder Pavel Durov — who is under investigation in France over illegal content on his messaging app — also blasted the raid.

                  “France is the only country in the world that is criminally persecuting all social networks that give people some degree of freedom,” the Russian-born entrepreneur wrote on X, naming Telegram, TikTok, and X.

                  Durov, who holds French and Russian passports, has been accused of complicity in running an online platform that allowed illicit transactions, images of child sex abuse and other illegal content. He denies the allegations.