French judicial authorities have summoned billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk for a voluntary interview as part of a wide-ranging probe into his social media platform X, a case that has escalated into one of the highest-profile regulatory challenges facing the platform globally. As of Saturday, officials have not confirmed whether Musk will appear for the scheduled questioning in Paris, nor have they released details on the exact timing or location of the interview. The investigation into X first launched in January 2025, opening over initial claims that the platform’s recommendation algorithm had been misused to interfere in domestic French political processes. What began as a narrow probe quickly expanded to incorporate additional serious allegations tied to X’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, including the tool’s role in spreading Holocaust denial and non-consensual sexual deepfake content. In early February, French prosecutors executed a search of X’s Paris headquarters, an action the social media firm has repeatedly denounced. The company, which has forcefully denied any illegal wrongdoing, labeled the office search as a “politicized” raid and an “abusive judicial act.” During that same round of procedural actions in February, prosecutors issued the first summons for Musk and then-X chief executive Linda Yaccarino, identifying both as the de facto and de jure leaders of the platform during the period covered by the investigation. Musk immediately pushed back against the move, calling it a deliberate “political attack.” Yaccarino stepped down from her role as CEO in July of the previous year, after leading the company for two years following Musk’s acquisition of the platform, then known as Twitter. Prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed in February that multiple X employees had also been called to give witness testimony between April 20 and 24. In an update provided Saturday, the Paris prosecutor’s office noted that non-appearance by any of the individuals invited for voluntary questioning would not halt or slow the progress of the ongoing investigation. Beyond the allegations of political interference and harmful AI-generated content, the French probe also encompasses suspected involvement in two additional serious criminal offenses: complicity in the distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material, and denial of crimes against humanity. X has repeatedly characterized the entire investigation as politically motivated, pushing back against the allegations publicly in comments made in July. This French investigation is not an isolated action, but rather part of a growing international regulatory backlash against Grok and X. The controversy surrounding Grok erupted after watchdog groups documented that the chatbot could be prompted to generate sexualized deepfake images of women and children using basic, unfiltered text prompts. The London-based nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a bombshell report in late January finding that Grok generated an estimated 3 million sexualized images in just 11 days. The vast majority of the content depicted adult women, but the report also identified roughly 23,000 images that appeared to show minors being sexualized. Regulators across Europe and the United Kingdom have quickly opened their own probes in response to the revelations. In February, the United Kingdom’s national data regulator launched parallel investigations into X and Musk’s AI firm xAI, citing “serious concerns” about whether the companies violated national personal data protection laws when developing and deploying Grok for deepfake generation. The European Union followed suit shortly after, opening its own formal investigation into X over Grok’s creation of non-consensual sexual deepfake content targeting women and minors. The coordinated cross-national actions mark one of the most significant collective regulatory challenges Musk has faced since his 2022 acquisition of the social media platform, highlighting growing global scrutiny of the company’s content moderation practices and the unregulated rollout of its generative AI tools.