Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit raids X’s French offices

Submission statement: The French offices of Elon Musk's social media X have been raided in the morning by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor as part of an investigation opened in July 2025 following reports that the American billionaire had modified the algorithms of his platform to promote violent, racist content and favor far-right influencers favorable to the Trump administration, which would constitute foreign interference.

The investigation was broadened in January 2026 to cover Grok, Musk's AI tool active on X, for generating on-demand pornographic material of individuals – including minors – without their consent, a crime punishable by up to 2 years of imprisonment and a €60,000 fine.

Since Musk's takeover of Twitter, rebranded "X", the far-right billionaire has used this platform to amplify far-right, neo-Nazi propaganda and to destabilize European governments seen as "hostile", often in lockstep with officials within the Trump administration. Musk notably played a role in helping amplify and coordinate anti-immigrant and racist content during the far-right riots that engulfed the UK in the summer of 2024, has called for the overthrow of British PM Keir Starmer, and publicly supported the extremist AfD in the 2025 German elections.

The growing hostility of the Trump administration to their European counterparts and its proximity with US tech giants has raised urgent questions about US interferences and destabilization attempts in their domestic politics. While Russia remains the primary source of foreign interferences in Europe, American attempts have increasingly been identified as a concern, with French diplomatic and intelligence services ringing the alarm; two weeks ago, a French magistrate revealed that officials of the US State Department attempted to lobby her to intervene in favor of Marine Le Pen in her ongoing corruption trial on appeal.