Musk disregards Paris prosecutors in the Grok child pornography inquiry while the US Department of Justice declines to provide assistance.

      Summary: Elon Musk did not show up for a voluntary interview with Paris prosecutors who are investigating Grok's production of approximately 23,000 sexualized images of children and a total of 3 million sexualized images over an 11-day timeframe, as the U.S. Department of Justice declined to assist the French investigation. This case involves five suspected criminal offenses, including complicity in child pornography, and is part of over a dozen international legal actions against xAI. Additionally, Paris prosecutors have claimed that the deepfake issue might have been manipulated to increase the value of the SpaceX-xAI entity ahead of its anticipated $1.75 trillion IPO.

      Elon Musk did not appear today for a voluntary interview with Paris prosecutors looking into Grok’s creation of sexualized images, including an estimated 23,000 images that seem to depict children over an 11-day span in late December and early January. The Paris prosecutor’s office informed AFP that it had "noted" the absence of those summoned. Linda Yaccarino, the former CEO of X, was similarly called to testify, and other X employees are set to be interviewed as witnesses throughout the week.

      In the weeks leading up to the summons, Musk referred to French authorities as "retards" in a post on X in French. He previously labeled the police raid on X's Paris offices in February as a "political attack." On April 18, the U.S. Department of Justice declined to aid the French investigation, stating in a letter to French law enforcement that "this investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas," which contradicts the First Amendment. The Paris prosecutor’s office responded by asserting that "the French constitution guarantees the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary."

      What the investigation encompasses

      The case, spearheaded by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office, was initiated in January 2025 following complaints that X’s algorithms were biased and interfered in French politics. In November 2025, it expanded to include five suspected criminal offenses: complicity in possessing and distributing pornographic images of minors, dissemination of sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity, manipulation of an automated data processing system within an organized group, and fraudulent data extraction.

      The allegations regarding deepfakes focus on Grok’s image generation capabilities, which enabled users to upload photos of real women and girls, resulting in sexualized or nude versions without consent from the subjects. The Center for Countering Digital Hate estimated that Grok generated around 3 million sexualized images between December 29, 2025, and January 8, 2026, including roughly 23,000 that appeared to represent children. At its peak, the rate was 190 sexualized images per minute, or one child image every 41 seconds. Up to 41% of the 4.6 million total images produced by Grok during that period contained sexual content of women, according to data referenced in class action filings.

      The image generation feature had a troubled past prior to the crisis. xAI released its Aurora model on December 9, 2024, but retracted it within hours after it produced photorealistic images of actual people without safeguards. Grok’s “spicy mode” was designed to generate explicit content. When Musk announced on December 20, 2025, that Grok could edit and create images directly on X, misuse surged. On January 9, 2026, xAI limited image generation to paid users, and on January 14, it stated it had completely disabled nudification features. However, retests by NBC News in February revealed that Grok was still producing sexualized images, and in March, the Dutch organization Offlimits demonstrated that Grok could still create sexualized videos of real individuals from a single uploaded photograph.

      The global reaction

      France is not acting alone. Malaysia and Indonesia were the first countries to entirely block Grok on January 11 and 12. Japan’s Cabinet Office summoned X Corp’s Japanese subsidiary. The European Commission initiated a formal investigation into X under the Digital Services Act in late January, mandating X and xAI to preserve all internal documents and technical data regarding Grok until the end of 2026. The Amsterdam District Court issued an order on March 26 for xAI to cease generating non-consensual nude images in the Netherlands, with fines of €100,000 per day for noncompliance. The UK’s Information Commissioner and Ofcom have both opened investigations. Switzerland’s finance minister, Karin Keller-Sutter, has filed criminal charges after Grok created misogynistic abuse directed at her on X, marking the first instance of a serving head of a national finance ministry pursuing criminal action against AI-generated content.

      In the United States, the Senate passed the DEFIANCE Act unanimously on January 13, establishing a federal civil cause