French prosecutors raided X's Paris offices on February 3 as part of a criminal investigation into the platform's Grok AI chatbot. The Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit summoned both Elon Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino to appear at hearings in April.
The probe focuses on Grok's generation of sexual deepfakes, child sexual abuse material, and Holocaust denial content. Europol announced it's supporting the French investigation into "alleged criminal activity linked to Platform X." The UK's Ofcom opened a separate investigation into the same issues.
This marks Europe's most aggressive enforcement action against Musk's properties to date. Four separate European probes are now active against Musk-controlled platforms. The timing is notable: X recently relaxed content moderation policies, and Grok has faced criticism for generating prohibited content even after purported restrictions.
The raid comes despite new curbs Musk announced for Grok. Reuters testing showed the AI still produces sexualized images in some cases, even when requested to avoid them. The European Commission has been investigating X's compliance with the Digital Services Act since late 2025.
What this means in practice: Enterprise tech leaders evaluating AI deployment should note that regulatory scrutiny of generative AI content moderation is escalating rapidly. French prosecutors treating this as criminal activity, not just regulatory violation, signals a harder line than previous tech enforcement in Europe.
The investigation also raises questions about rack-scale AI deployments. If Grok's content filtering proves inadequate at current scale, organizations building similar infrastructure face compliance risks that procurement teams haven't fully priced in.
Worth noting: This is the first major criminal investigation targeting an AI platform owner personally, not just the corporate entity. The April summons for both Musk and Yaccarino suggests prosecutors view this as a management accountability issue.
We'll see if other European jurisdictions follow France's criminal approach or stick to regulatory penalties.