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French Prosecutors Raid X Offices and Summon Musk as U.K. Launches New Probe Into Grok

TIME - Tech

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.


French authorities raid X offices, summon Musk in cybercrime probe

Al Jazeera

French police have raided the Paris offices of X and summoned its owner, Elon Musk, to appear at a hearing, amid an ongoing investigation into the social media giant, the prosecution has said. The search on Tuesday related to an investigation launched in January last year into allegations of biased algorithms and fraudulent data extraction by the platform, the Paris Prosecutor's Office said in a post on X. These included possessing and spreading pornographic images of minors, defamation of personal image related to the creation of sexually explicit "deepfakes", Holocaust denial, and manipulation of an automated data processing system. Prosecutors have also filed requests for "voluntary interviews" of Musk - the billionaire CEO of X's parent company xAI, as well as SpaceX and Tesla - and the platform's former CEO, Linda Yaccarino, on April 20. Other staff at X - known as Twitter before Musk's 2022 purchase of the platform - have been summoned to appear the same week as witnesses, the office said.


French headquarters of Elon Musk's X raided by Paris cybercrime unit

The Guardian

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".


Ex-Google engineer convicted of stealing AI trade secrets to benefit China

Los Angeles Times

A federal jury on Thursday convicted Linwei Ding, 38, of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets after an 11-day trial in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California.


Chabria: Tim Walz isn't the only governor plagued by fraud. Newsom may be targeted next

Los Angeles Times

Things to Do in L.A. Tim Walz isn't the only governor plagued by fraud. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he would not seek a third term amid attacks over a fraud scandal involving child care funding. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . California has lost billions to cheats in the last few years, leaving Newsom vulnerable to the same sort of attack that took down Walz.


Sam Bankman-Fried Goes on the Offensive

WIRED

Two years after he was found guilty of fraud, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is pursuing a legal appeal--and firing up his X account. On September 23, for the first time in more than six months, an X account belonging to disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried published a post . It simply read, "gm"--internet slang for "good morning." The account has been posting consistently since. Bankman-Fried--known widely as SBF--is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in California.


French authorities look into Holocaust denial posts from Elon Musk's Grok AI

The Guardian

The Grok chatbot on X has previously spewed antisemitic content and referred to itself as'MechaHitler'. The Grok chatbot on X has previously spewed antisemitic content and referred to itself as'MechaHitler'. French authorities look into Holocaust denial posts from Elon Musk's Grok AI X chatbot suggested gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau were'designed for disinfection' not mass executions French public prosecutors are investigating allegations by government ministers and human rights groups that Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot, made statements denying the Holocaust . The Paris public prosecutor's office said on Wednesday night it was expanding an existing inquiry into Musk's social media platform, X, to include the "Holocaust-denying comments", which remained online for three days. Beneath a now-deleted post by a convicted French Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi militant, Grok on Monday advanced several false claims commonly made by people who deny Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews during the second world war.


UK billionaire Joe Lewis receives pardon from Trump

BBC News

Billionaire UK businessman Joe Lewis, whose family trust owns Tottenham Hotspur football club, has received a pardon from US President Donald Trump. Lewis, 88, pleaded guilty to insider trading as part of an agreement with prosecutors in 2024 that saw him avoid prison. He was accused of passing on information about his companies to his private pilots, friends, personal assistants and romantic partners in a fraud that authorities said netted millions of dollars in profit. A White House official said Trump approved the pardon for Lewis, who requested it so he could receive medical treatment and visit his grandchildren and great grandchildren in the US. Mr Lewis admitted he made a terrible mistake, did not fight extradition in the case, and paid a $5 million fine, the official told the BBC.


How Hacked Card Shufflers Allegedly Enabled a Mob-Fueled Poker Scam That Rocked the NBA

WIRED

WIRED recently demonstrated how to cheat at poker by hacking the Deckmate 2 card shufflers used in casinos. The mob was allegedly using the same trick to fleece victims for millions. Security researcher Joseph Tartaro demonstrates how he can insert a hacking device into a USB on the back of the shuffler that alters its code, then transmits the deck's order via Bluetooth to a phone app. The Deckmate 2 automatic card shufflers used in casinos, cardhouses, and high-end private poker games around the world are designed to shuffle a deck in seconds with perfect, computer-generated randomness, vastly speeding up play. They're also, amazingly, sold with a camera inside that can observe every card in the deck before it's dealt--a fact that's become very convenient for poker-cheating hackers and, allegedly, members of the Cosa Nostra mafia.


Smuggler jailed for 40 years after shipping ballistic missiles parts from Iran

BBC News

A weapons smuggler, who used a fishing boat to ship ballistic missile parts from Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen, has been sentenced to 40 years in a US prison. Pakistani national Muhammad Pahlawan was detained during a US military operation in the Arabian Sea in January 2024 - during which two US Navy Seals drowned. Pahlawan's crew would later testify they had been duped into taking part, having believed they were working as fishermen. The Houthis were launching sustained missile and drone attacks on Israel at the time, as well as targeting international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, saying they were acting in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. Iran has consistently denied arming the Houthis.