PARIS (AP) — French prosecutors raided the offices of Elon Musk’s social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into a range of alleged offences, including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes.
The investigation was opened in January last year by the prosecutors’ cybercrime unit, the Paris prosecutors' office said in a statement. It's looking into alleged “complicity” in possessing and spreading pornographic images of minors, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized group, among other charges.
Prosecutors also asked Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino to attend “voluntary interviews” on April 20. Employees of X have also been summoned that same week to be heard as witnesses, the statement said. Yaccarino was CEO from May 2023 until July 2025.
A spokesperson for X did not respond to a request for comment.
In a message posted on X, the Paris prosecutors’ office announced the ongoing searches at the company's offices in France and said it was leaving the platform while calling on followers to join it on other social media.
“At this stage, the conduct of the investigation is based on a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French law, as it operates on the national territory,” the prosecutors' statement said.
European Union police agency Europol ’’is supporting the French authorities in this,″ Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth told The Associated Press, without elaborating.
The investigation was first opened following reports by a French lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms on X were likely to have distorted the functioning of an automated data processing system.
It was later expanded after Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok generated posts that allegedly denied the Holocaust and spread sexually explicit deepfakes, the statement said. Holocaust denial is a crime in France.
Grok wrote in a widely shared post in French that gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp were designed for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than for mass murder — language long associated with Holocaust denial.
Musk's artificial intelligence company built xAI and it is integrated into his X platform.
In later posts on its X account, the chatbot acknowledged that its earlier reply was wrong, said it had been deleted and pointed to historical evidence that Zyklon B in Auschwitz gas chambers was used to kill more than 1 million people.
Grok has a history of making antisemitic comments. Musk’s company took down posts from the chatbot that appeared to praise Adolf Hitler after complaints.
X is also under pressure from the EU. The 27-nation bloc's executive arm opened an investigation last month after Grok spewed nonconsensual sexualized deepfake images on the platform.
Brussels has already hit X with a 120-million euro (then-$140 million) fine for shortcomings under the bloc's sweeping digital regulations, including blue checkmarks that broke the rules on “deceptive design practices” that risked exposing users to scams and manipulation.
FILE - The opening page of X is displayed on a computer and phone, Oct. 16, 2023, in Sydney. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired around 450 long-range drones and 70 missiles of various types at Ukraine in a major attack overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday.
The barrage came as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv in a show of support and a day before Russia and Ukraine were due to attend U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, on ending the all-out war, which Russia launched nearly four years ago.
The bombardment of at least five regions of Ukraine included a record number of 32 ballistic missiles and specifically took aim at the power grid, Zelenskyy said, as part of Moscow’s ongoing campaign to deny civilians light, heating and running water during the coldest winter in years.
Private power company DTEK said it was the heaviest barrage of the electricity network this year. At least 10 people were wounded, officials said.
“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said. Temperatures in Kyiv fell to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) during the night and stood at minus 16 C (minus 3 F) on Tuesday.
He urged allies to send more air defense supplies and bring “maximum pressure” to bear on Russia to end its full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Officials have described recent talks between Moscow and Kyiv delegations as constructive. But after a year of efforts, the Trump administration is still searching for a breakthrough on key issues such as who keeps the Ukrainian land that Russia’s army has occupied, and a comprehensive settlement appears distant. The Abu Dhabi talks were scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
Rutte addressed the Ukrainian parliament during his visit and said that countries in the military alliance "are ready to provide support quickly and consistently” as peace efforts drag on.
Since last summer, NATO members have provided 75% of all missiles supplied to the front, and 90% of those used for Ukraine's air defense, he said.
European countries, fearing Moscow's ambitions, see their own future security as being on the line in Ukraine.
“Be assured that NATO stands with Ukraine and is ready to do so for years to come," Rutte said. “Your security is our security. Your peace is our peace. And it must be lasting.”
A Kremlin official said last week that Russia had agreed to halt strikes on Kyiv for a week until Feb. 1 because of the frigid temperatures, following a personal request from U.S. President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the bitter cold is continuing and so are Russia’s aerial attacks.
Russia has tried to wear down Ukrainians’ appetite for the fight by creating hardship for the civilian population living in dark, freezing homes.
It has tried to wreck Ukraine’s electricity network, targeting substations, transformers, turbines and generators at power plants. Ukraine’s largest private power company, DTEK, said that the overnight attack hit its thermal power plants in the ninth major assault since October.
In Kyiv, officials said that five people were wounded in the strikes that damaged and set fire to residential buildings, a kindergarten and a gas station in various parts of the capital, according to the State Emergency Service.
By early morning, 1,170 apartment buildings in the capital were without heating, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. That set back desperate repair operations that had restored power to all but 80 apartment buildings, he said.
Russia also struck Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, where injuries were reported, and the southern Odesa region.
The attack also damaged the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, at the foot of the Motherland Monument in Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna said.
“It is symbolic and cynical at the same time: the aggressor state strikes a place of memory about the fight against aggression in the 20th century, repeating crimes in the 21st,” Berezhna said.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte attend a commemorative ceremony at the memorial of fallen Ukrainian soldiers at Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
People take shelter in a metro station, being used as a bomb shelter, during a Russian drones attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
People take shelter in a metro station, being used as a bomb shelter, during a Russian drones attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
A woman rests in a shelter at a metro station during Russia's massive missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
People take shelter in a metro station, being used as a bomb shelter, during a Russian drones attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
