French judicial officials have appointed an investigating magistrate to probe US tech billionaire Elon Musk over possible abuses on his social media network X, sources close to the case said on Thursday.
Authorities in France launched an investigation in January 2025 into allegations that X, formerly known as Twitter, was used to interfere in French politics, later expanding the probe to include allegations of Holocaust denial and distribution of sexual deepfakes.
The magistrate will also rule on possible complicity in the distribution of images of child sexual abuse.
Last month, Musk refused to attend a voluntary interview with prosecutors in Paris about X and its AI chatbot Grok.
The Tesla and SpaceX tycoon’s failure to appear for the interview “has not been an obstacle to continuing the investigation”, said Arthur Delaporte, a Socialist MP who helped file the legal complaints against X.
Delaporte praised “the work of investigators and magistrates in this complex and sensitive case”.
Musk, along with X’s former CEO Linda Yaccarino, are being targeted in their capacity as operators of the X platform at the time of the events.
The Paris public prosecutor has already opened investigations into the activities of the messaging service Telegram, the live-streaming platform Kick, and the video app TikTok.
The world’s richest man is also currently embroiled in a courtroom battle in the United States with OpenAI boss Sam Altman over the future of the ChatGPT maker.
