French prosecutors carried out a search on the offices of Elon Musk's social media platform X on Tuesday morning and summoned the billionaire owner to attend a hearing in April. Conducted by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor's office, along with the French national cyber unit and European Union police agency Europol, the search marks an escalation of the ongoing investigation into X over suspected abuse of algorithms, plus allegations related to deepfake images and wider concerns over posts generated by the platform's AI chatbot, Grok. The office said the search was carried out with "the objective of ultimately ensuring the compliance of the X platform with French law" and in particular, a focus on X's Grok, designed by xAI, which chief prosecutor Laure Beccuau says has led "to the dissemination of Holocaust denial content and sexually explicit deepfakes." Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth is quoted as telling Associated Press that the police agency "is supporting the French authorities in this." Musk and former CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, have both been summoned for "voluntary interviews" with French prosecutors on April 20.

The French investigation into alleged algorithm manipulation by X has expanded to examine the spread of sexually explicit deepfakes. The French investigation into alleged algorithm manipulation by X has expanded to examine the spread of sexually explicit deepfakes. French headquarters of Elon Musk's X raided by Paris cybercrime unit Tue 3 Feb 2026 09.25 ESTFirst published on Tue 3 Feb 2026 06.42 EST Prosecutors have raided the French headquarters of Elon Musk's social media platform X and summoned the tech billionaire and the company's former chief executive for questioning as part of an investigation into alleged cybercrime. "A search is under way by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor's office, the national police cyber unit and Europol," the Paris prosecutors' office said in a post on X on Tuesday, adding that it would no longer be publishing on the network. It said in a statement that Musk and Linda Yaccarino had been summoned for "voluntary questioning" in their capacity as "de facto and de jure managers of the X platform at the time of the events".

What we've been getting wrong about AI's truth crisis Even when content is revealed to be manipulated, it still shapes our beliefs. The defenders of truth are hopelessly behind. What would it take to convince you that the era of truth decay we were long warned about--where AI content dupes us, shapes our beliefs even when we catch the lie, and erodes societal trust in the process--is now here? A story I published last week pushed me over the edge. It also made me realize that the tools we were sold as a cure for this crisis are failing miserably. On Thursday, I reported the first confirmation that the US Department of Homeland Security, which houses immigration agencies, is using AI video generators from Google and Adobe to make content that it shares with the public.

Civitai--an online marketplace for buying and selling AI-generated content, backed by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz--is letting users buy custom instruction files for generating celebrity deepfakes. Some of these files were specifically designed to make pornographic images banned by the site, a new analysis has found. The study, from researchers at Stanford and Indiana University, looked at people's requests for content on the site, called "bounties." The researchers found that between mid-2023 and the end of 2024, most bounties asked for animated content--but a significant portion were for deepfakes of real people, and 90% of these deepfake requests targeted women. Demand for electric vehicles and the batteries that power them has never been hotter. In 2025, EVs made up over a quarter of new vehicle sales globally, up from less than 5% in 2020.

New research details how Civitai lets users buy and sell tools to fine-tune deepfakes the company says are banned. Civitai--an online marketplace for buying and selling AI-generated content, backed by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz--is letting users buy custom instruction files for generating celebrity deepfakes. Some of these files were specifically designed to make pornographic images banned by the site, a new analysis has found. The study, from researchers at Stanford and Indiana University, looked at people's requests for content on the site, called "bounties." The researchers found that between mid-2023 and the end of 2024, most bounties asked for animated content--but a significant portion were for deepfakes of real people, and 90% of these deepfake requests targeted women. The debate around deepfakes, as illustrated by the recent backlash to explicit images on the X-owned chatbot Grok, has revolved around what platforms should do to block such content.

In a number of instances, investigation showed that while one Telegram channel had been shut down, another with a near-identical name remained active. In a number of instances, investigation showed that while one Telegram channel had been shut down, another with a near-identical name remained active. Millions of people around the world are creating and sharing deepfake nudes on the secure messaging app Telegram, a Guardian analysis has shown, as the spread of advanced AI tools industrialises the online abuse of women. The Guardian has identified at least 150 Telegram channels - large encrypted group chats popular for their secure communication - that appear to have users in many countries, from the UK to Brazil, China to Nigeria, Russia to India. Some of them offer "nudified" photos or videos for a fee: users can upload a photo of any woman, and AI will produce a video of that woman performing sexual acts.

The European Commission has launched an investigation into Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, regarding the creation of sexually explicit fake images of women and minors. The commission announced on Monday that its investigation would examine whether the AI tool used on X has met its legal obligations under the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires social media companies to address illegal and harmful online content. In a statement to the AFP news agency, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Europe will not "tolerate unthinkable behaviour, such as digital undressing of women and children". "It is simple - we will not hand over consent and child protection to tech companies to violate and monetise. The harm caused by illegal images is very real," she added.

Sexual deepfakes continue to get more sophisticated, capable, easy to access, and perilous for millions of women who are abused with the technology. Open the website of one explicit deepfake generator and you'll be presented with a menu of horrors. With just a couple of clicks, it offers you the ability to convert a single photo into an eight-second explicit videoclip, inserting women into realistic-looking graphic sexual situations. "Transform any photo into a nude version with our advanced AI technology," text on the website says. The options for potential abuse are extensive.

Grok's Leering Pictures Are the Newest Version of an Old Problem Image-based abuse predates Elon Musk's latest sleazy bot, but AI is making it worse. Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. There's a picture of myself that I had saved on my desktop for years; I suppose we could call it a caricature. A little more than a decade ago, someone on a Nazi messageboard pulled a photo of me from social media, then updated it with some antisemitic flair: a little cartoon rat sitting on my shoulder, a yellow pinned on its tiny body. Referencing what Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust is meant to be a humiliation; the goal isn't hard to figure out, given that the whole star patch thing is near-medieval in both its imagery and its aims.

Elon Musk has suggested he could buy Ryanair and called for its chief executive to be fired amid a deepening spat between the pair. The budget airline on Tuesday branded the Tesla chief executive an idiot, and used the extraordinary row to promote its January sale. Musk and Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary have been trading insults over the past week after O'Leary rejected the idea of using Musk's Starlink technology to provide wi-fi on flights. The two are among the world's most outspoken business chiefs, with Musk the world's richest man with an estimated net worth of $769bn (£573bn), and O'Leary running Europe's busiest airline. A statement on Ryanair's X account on Tuesday evening said: Perhaps Musk needs a break?? Ryanair is launching a Great Idiots seat sale especially for Elon and any other idiots on'X'.