The legal pressure on Elon Musk’s social media giant, X, has escalated to an unprecedented level. On the morning of February 3, 2026, French cybercrime prosecutors, with the tactical support of Europol, conducted a surprise raid on the company’s Paris headquarters.
The Charges:
The investigation, which initially began in early 2025 focusing on biased algorithms, has now exploded into a multi-count criminal probe. Authorities are investigating:
Sexual Deepfakes: The mass generation and dissemination of non-consensual AI-generated explicit images, many involving minors, via the Grok AI chatbot.
Content Moderation Failure: Complicity in the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Holocaust Denial: Allegations that Grok has generated content denying crimes against humanity, which is a strictly prosecuted criminal offense in France.
Data Manipulation: Potential interference with automated data processing systems.
A Triple Threat from Europe:
France: In a bold move, Paris prosecutors have summoned Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino to appear for mandatory hearings in April.
United Kingdom: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has officially launched its own probe into xAI (the company behind Grok) to determine if personal data laws were violated during the chatbot’s training and deployment.
European Commission: Under the Digital Services Act (DSA), Brussels is investigating whether X failed to mitigate "systemic risks" before releasing Grok's image generation features.
The Scale of the Scandal:
Reports from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) claim that Grok produced nearly 3 million sexualized images in just an 11-day period between December 2025 and January 2026.
As European regulators move from warnings to physical raids, the "free speech" defense used by Musk is facing its ultimate legal challenge. If found guilty of DSA violations, X could face fines of up to 6% of its global turnover.
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