French authorities raided the Paris offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a widening criminal investigation into alleged child pornography linked to the platform’s AI chatbot, Grok.
Prosecutors said X owner Elon Musk has been summoned for questioning, along with several current and former executives, including former chief executive Linda Yaccarino.
“Today’s staged raid reinforces our conviction that this investigation distorts French law, circumvents due process, and endangers free speech,” they wrote. “X is committed to defending its fundamental rights and the rights of its users. We will not be intimidated by the actions of French judicial authorities today.”
Consumer advocacy groups argue that when regulators investigate AI developers whose tools are used to create illegal content, they should examine whether the company could have reasonably anticipated how those tools would be misused.
“Regulators should examine whether the company’s design choices made illegal misuse foreseeable, whether risk assessments were adequate, and whether safeguards were meaningfully tested before launch,” Big Tech Accountability Advocate at Public Citizen, J.B. Branch, told Decrypt. “Platforms that profit from rapid deployment must bear responsibility for the harms that deployment creates. That is exactly what happens in other industries.”
While current laws against non-consensual sexual imagery and child sexual abuse material remain essential, Branch said they were not built for AI that can "mass-produce harm at scalable speed."
“We need clearer, proactive obligations that require companies to prevent AI-enabled abuse before it happens, including independent regulator testing that can stress test problems before AI products go to market,” he said. “When something this serious happens, the tool should be immediately removed.”
Probes aboundInvestigations into the chatbot have now expanded across multiple jurisdictions, including the UK, the EU, India, Australia, and the U.S.
The same day that French officials raided X’s Paris office, the UK–based Information Commissioner’s Office announced it had also opened an investigation into Grok.
According to Malcolm, these concerns relate to whether personal data has been processed lawfully, fairly, and transparently, and whether appropriate safeguards were built into Grok’s design and deployment to prevent the generation of harmful manipulated images using personal data.
“Where those safeguards fail, individuals lose control of their personal data in ways that expose them to serious harm,” he wrote. “Examining these risks is central to the ICO’s role in protecting people’s rights and holding organisations to account as they design and deploy AI technology.”
The actions in Europe are the latest targeting X and Grok, last month the UK-based media regulator Ofcom opened an investigation into whether X violated its obligations under the Online Safety Act.
SpaceX and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Decrypt.
