France Expands Criminal Investigation Into Elon Musk’s X

The announcement comes as Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of messaging app Telegram, is still under judicial supervision in France.

Elon Musk listens as then-President-elect Donald Trump addresses a House Republicans Conference meeting in Washington on Nov. 13, 2024. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

A top French prosecutor has expanded a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform X over allegations that the company’s algorithms led to “foreign interference.”

In a statement released on July 11, Magistrate Laure Beccuau with the Paris public prosecutor’s office wrote that in the past week it referred an earlier investigation to the General Directorate of the National Gendarmerie, a French police force, to enhance an investigation into X.

The investigation relates to “tampering with the operation of an automated data processing system by an organized gang” and “fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system by an organized gang,” according to a translation of the prosecutor’s statement.

Paris prosecutors launched a preliminary probe in January, after receiving complaints of X’s alleged foreign interference from a lawmaker and a senior French official, Beccuau said in the statement. On July 9, after preliminary findings provided by researchers and French public institutions, they asked police to investigate X “as both a legal entity and through individual persons.”

On July 11, French Member of Parliament Éric Bothorel, who belongs to French President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble pour la République Party, confirmed that he had submitted an inquiry to the Paris office, according to a post he made on X.

The lawmaker said the inquiry was filed because he was “convinced that an informational bias, extreme on the X platform, was being used to serve Elon Musk’s political opinions and that this could only happen through algorithmic manipulation,” according to a translation into English.

The announcement comes as Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of messaging app Telegram, is under judicial supervision in France after being arrested in 2024 and placed under formal investigation for alleged organized crime on the app. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Durov’s arrest, which Musk has criticized, has ignited a debate about free speech online. Following Durov’s 2024 arrest, Musk wrote in a post on X that the Telegram CEO should be freed.

Musk was a special government employee in the current White House until he departed in late May, but he has since broken with U.S. President Donald Trump, saying earlier in July that he would create his own political party to challenge both Democrats and Republicans. Musk over the weekend also called for the Trump administration to release files pertaining to deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein amid online controversy over how the files are being handled.

Aside from France, European Union (EU) officials have warned that X, formerly called Twitter, could be fined significant amounts if it does not comply with the bloc’s laws regarding content.

“With great audience comes greater responsibility,” Thierry Breton, former EU commissioner for internal market, wrote in a 2024 post on X. “As there is a risk of amplification of potentially harmful content in [Europe] in connection with events with major [audiences] around the world, I sent this letter to @elonmusk.”

Breton resigned later in 2024.

The EU has said it would also investigate the purchase of X by Musk’s xAI in a $33 billion deal in May.

“We are following closely changes in the corporate structure of X, as we would changes in any other designated platform,” a spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement in June.

The Epoch Times contacted X’s media office for comment on July 14. Musk has not yet responded to the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Reuters contributed to this report.