Elon Musk attacked French judicial authorities on Friday, hurling insults at prosecutors who are now pursuing a criminal investigation into his social media platform X over allegations including the spread of child sexual abuse imagery, Holocaust denial, and sexually explicit deepfakes.
A Tirade in French
Responding to a post about the latest escalation of the probe, Musk wrote in French: "They're faker than a chocolate euro and gayer than a flamingo in a neon tutu!" It was not the first time the Tesla owner had targeted French magistrates with slurs. After authorities raided X's Paris office in February, Musk labeled the judges "mentally retarded" in a French-language post on his own platform.
The outburst came days after the Paris prosecutor's office announced on May 7 that it had escalated the long-running inquiry into a formal criminal investigation, naming X Corp, X.AI Holdings Corp, Musk, and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino as subjects. The move followed Musk and Yaccarino's refusal to appear for voluntary interviews scheduled for April 20, to which roughly 10 other X executives had also been summoned.
An Expanding Probe
The investigation traces back to January 2025, when French lawmaker Éric Bothorel raised concerns that X's algorithms were being manipulated to interfere in French politics. It broadened after the platform's AI chatbot Grok generated posts denying the Holocaust — a crime under French law — and produced a wave of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfake images that drew global condemnation.
Investigators also identified what they called a deliberate change in X's tools for detecting child sexual abuse material, accompanied by an 80 percent drop in reports of such content related to France, according to Le Monde. French prosecutors separately alerted the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to suspicions that the Grok deepfake controversy may have been orchestrated to inflate the value of X and xAI ahead of a market listing.
Defiance and Legal Consequences
Musk has consistently dismissed the French inquiry as "a political attack". X's Global Government Affairs account called the February raid "abusive" and said the company "categorically denies any misconduct". Neither Musk nor Yaccarino complied with the April summons.
The Paris prosecutor's office said it would now seek to formally charge the individuals and entities involved, warning that failure to appear could result in the issuance of warrants equivalent to an indictment. "This procedure aims to uphold the law and to protect individuals who have been victims of criminal offenses, both online and in real life," the prosecutors stated.