Musk calls French raid on X's offices a 'political attack'
US tech billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday described a search conducted by French authorities at the Paris offices of his social media platform X as a “political attack”.
Musk remarked in response to a statement from X’s Global Government Affairs, which said the search was carried out “in connection with a politicised criminal investigation into alleged manipulation of algorithms and purported fraudulent data extraction”.
“We are disappointed by this development, but we are not surprised,” the statement said.
French judicial authorities raided X’s Paris office today in connection with a politicized criminal investigation into alleged manipulation of algorithms and purported fraudulent data extraction. We are disappointed by this development, but we are not surprised. The Paris Public…
It added that 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”.
Read: Epstein files show Elon Musk discussed visiting sex offender’s island
Earlier, the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit announced it had searched X’s French premises as part of an ongoing investigation.
According to the BBC, 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 Tuesday'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.