French prosecutors summon Elon Musk for questioning over sexualized deepfakes on X network
On April 20, the French prosecutor’s office sent a request for voluntary questioning to billionaire Elon Musk. The reason was the activity of the artificial intelligence Grok on the social network X, which is used to create pornographic content using deepfakes technology.
According to information France24, it has not yet been confirmed whether the businessman will agree to appear for a conversation with investigators. Platform X representatives previously characterized these actions of law enforcement officers as “politically motivated,” and the prosecutor’s office did not disclose details about the time and location of the meeting.
This investigation is part of a global campaign against Grok tools. It was found that the AI model allows users to create sexualized images of women and children using only text prompts. Data from the Center for Combating Digital Hate (CCDH) indicate that in just 11 days of operation of the service, about three million such images were generated, of which approximately 23,000 likely contained signs of pornography involving minors.
At the end of 2025, the company xAI integrated a function into Grok that allows creating intimate images of real people. Users only had to leave a comment under the photo asking the AI to “undress” a person, for example, by drawing them in underwear.
According to researcher Genevieve Oh for Bloomberg, in early January 2024, the chatbot was producing about 6,700 such images per hour. The victims included both ordinary women and celebrities and representatives of the political sphere. Initially, the function was free with certain limits, but from January 9, access to creating deepfakes became possible only with a paid subscription.
The innovation caused a wave of criticism from global regulators, in particular from the UK. Elon Musk rejected the accusations, spreading a post that the British government was ignoring similar problems in ChatGPT or Gemini, focusing only on X. The entrepreneur concluded that “they want any excuse for censorship.”
