A month before his summons to Paris, Elon Musk is once again in the sights of French justice: the capital’s prosecutor’s office reported to the American authorities a possible “artificial valuation” of companies X and X AI by the richest man in the world.
“The controversy sparked by the deepfakes of a sexual nature generated by Grok (AI of X) could have been generated on purpose, in order to artificially promote the companies X and
The latter then issued, on March 17, a “spontaneous transmission of information” to the American Department of Justice, “via the office of international criminal assistance of the French Ministry of Justice.” This transmission was also sent “for the benefit of French lawyers from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is the American federal body for the regulation and control of financial markets,” details the public prosecutor. When contacted, X’s lawyer in France was not immediately reachable.
This transmission was made while the Paris prosecutor’s office is investigating the social network Elon Musk on April 20 for a free audition. It is within the framework of this investigation that the Parisian magistrates believe they have identified possible other reprehensible actions on the part of Elon Musk, and wanted to “draw the attention of the SEC to information that appeared (…) and accessible in open source”, according to the public prosecutor.
Grok celebrated
According to “Le Monde”, which revealed this report, the prosecution made particular reference to “several messages from Elon Musk, posted in the midst of a controversy and which the magistrates interpret as so many incitements to generate non-consensual images”.
In these messages, “Elon Musk rejoices, with lots of emojis, of the ‘undressing’ capabilities of his artificial intelligence engine, going so far as to relay his own image, in which his chatbot makes him wear a bikini,” underlines “Le Monde”. “At the same time, Elon Musk published around twenty messages celebrating the presence of the Grok application at the top of the rankings of the most downloaded applications in various countries.”
The social network X has been targeted since the beginning of 2025 by a preliminary investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office. The investigations relate to suspicions of algorithmic bias, complicity in the possession of images of minors of a child pornography nature, complicity in the dissemination, offering or making available in an organized group of images of minors of a child pornography nature, deepfake of a sexual nature, or even negationism.
They led to a search of X’s French premises at the beginning of February. Network However, French justice seemed open to an exchange with Elon Musk, aged 54: he was summoned for questioning in the form of a free hearing rather than police custody. Linda Yaccarino, former general director of X, is also summoned on the same date.
These free hearings “of managers must allow them to explain their position on the facts and, where applicable, the compliance measures envisaged”, underlined in February the Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau. Employees of X are also summoned from April 20 to 24 “to be heard as witnesses”.
