The French government raided the offices of Elon Musk’s X over concerns about the possible production and circulation of child sexual abuse images, highlighting once again the distinctly hands-off stance the Trump administration has taken with the social media platform.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said that the raid stemmed from an investigation that began in January 2025 after allegations that X’s algorithms were being manipulated. The investigation was then expanded to include the production and dissemination of unauthorized sexual images, including of minors.
Elon Musk is seen giving a Nazi salute during President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025.
The office also said that there were concerns about the network being used to promote Holocaust denialism, which is illegal in France. Musk has a history of promoting antisemitism and was widely condemned for giving a Nazi salute during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
X has also been accused of refusing to disclose to the French government the names of subscribers who are suspected of committing crimes.
“The investigation concerns a range of suspected criminal offences linked to the functioning and use of the platform, including the dissemination of illegal content and other forms of online criminal activity,” the European Union’s law enforcement agency Europol said in a statement.
Meanwhile, instead of backing these investigations of X and Musk, the Trump administration has threatened Europe. After the United Kingdom considered a ban of X following its spread of sexualized deepfakes, a State Department spokesperson suggested that there might be a hostile response from the U.S. government.
Furthermore, senior Republican lawmakers—from Trump to the heads of the House and Senate—have so far not brought up a possible probe of Musk, even as his services have been blocked in multiple countries.
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And despite purported curbs put in place with Grok, X’s AI chatbot that created the sexualized images in question, a Reuters report released Tuesday showed that the production of these images is still underway.
Grok allowed Reuters’ researchers to produce sexualized images even when told that the person in the photos submitted had not consented and “was crying.”
Unsurprisingly, Republicans have been silent about the controversy surrounding Musk, who spent millions of dollars to elect Trump in 2024.
Musk has already committed millions to help Republicans retain control of Congress in the 2026 midterms. And in exchange, the party seems happy to allow the dissemination of these images—including of child sexual abuse—to continue.
