The legal standoff between France and the tech giants has reached a new milestone. On Tuesday, a raid was conducted on the offices of the social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, marking an acceleration of an investigation launched in January 2025.
X social media offices raided in Paris
On Tuesday, February 3, 2026, the cybercrime unit of the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office carried out a high-profile operation at the French offices of the social media platform X.
This operation, carried out in collaboration with the National Cyber Unit of the Gendarmerie (UNCyber) and with the support of Europol, is part of an investigation that began in January 2025.
The proceedings were initiated following two reports from a member of parliament and a senior official at a public institution, alleging possible foreign influence and interference facilitated by the platform’s algorithm.
Excerpt from the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office press release
The charges brought are as follows:
- aiding and abetting the possession of child pornography;
- aiding and abetting the distribution, offering, or making available, as part of an organized criminal group, of child pornography;
- violation of a person’s image (sexual deepfakes);
- denial of crimes against humanity (Holocaust denial);
- fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system as part of an organized criminal group;
- tampering with the operation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized criminal group;
- operation of an illegal online platform as part of an organized criminal group.
The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office has also summoned Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X until last July, for a voluntary hearing scheduled for April 20, 2026, in Paris.
The parallel with the Telegram case and Pavel Durov’s reaction
This crackdown on X inevitably brings to mind the precedent set by the Pavel Durov case. The CEO of Telegram, who was indicted in August 2024 and placed under judicial supervision, faces a dozen similar charges, ranging from complicity in drug trafficking to the distribution of child pornography on his app.
France thus appears to be establishing itself as one of the strictest jurisdictions in the world regarding the criminal liability of social media executives, to the point that some internet users are now denouncing it as a direct attack on freedom of expression.
For many, targeting Elon Musk and Pavel Durov is a way to impose less encryption and more control, in the name of fighting online crime—a strategy that primarily affects honest users. Criminals, for their part, would still have an economic incentive to turn to alternative solutions that are more opaque and beyond the reach of the authorities.
Pavel Durov, who appeared before an investigating judge in December 2024, was quick to react to the raid targeting X:
French police are currently raiding X’s offices in Paris. France is the only country in the world that criminally prosecutes all social media platforms offering citizens a certain degree of freedom (Telegram, X, TikTok…). Make no mistake: this is not a free country.
