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.

In a post at the time, X said the action was "politically-motivated" and denied allegations it had manipulated its algorithm.

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.

New UK investigation

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.

The company eventually intervened to prevent the practice, after Ofcom and others launched investigations.

In an update on Tuesday, Ofcom said it was continuing to investigate the platform and was treating it as "a matter of urgency".

But it added it was currently unable to investigate the creation of illegal images by Grok in this case because it did not have sufficient powers relating to chatbots.

However, shortly afterwards the ICO said it was launching its own probe, in conjunction with Ofcom, into the processing of personal data in relation to the Grok.

"The reports about Grok raise deeply troubling questions about how people's personal data has been used to generate intimate or sexualised images without their knowledge or consent, and whether the necessary safeguards were put in place to prevent this," said William Malcolm, the ICO's executive director for regulatory risk & innovation.

In late January, the European Commission announced an investigation into its parent company xAI over concerns about the images.

A Commission spokesperson said it was in touch with France over its search of X's office in Paris.

'Not a free country'

Pavel Durov - founder of the messaging app Telegram - criticised the French authorities on Tuesday, accusing France of being "the only country in the world that is criminally persecuting all social networks that give people some degree of freedom".

"Don't be mistaken: this is not a free country," he added in a post on X.

Durov was arrested and detained in France in August 2024 over alleged moderation lapses on his messaging app, which the Paris prosecutor's office said had failed to curb criminal activity.

He was permitted to leave the country last March after the platform made some changes to the way it operates following the arrest.

These included sharing some user data with authorities in response to legal requests. (BBC)

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