Elon Musk failed to appear at a Paris hearing on Monday as part of an investigation into his social media platform X. The probe centres on allegations that the platform and its AI chatbot Grok have been used to disseminate child sexual abuse material.
Issued on: 21/04/2026 - RFI
"The prosecutor’s office notes the absence of the first individuals who were summoned. Their presence or absence does not hinder the continuation of the investigation,” the prosecutor's statement reads, without mentioning anyone by name.
Musk and the former CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino were summoned as part of an investigation, launched in January 2025, into allegations that X's algorithm was used to interfere in French politics.
The probe was later expanded to include an investigation into X's AI chatbot Grok's dissemination of Holocaust denial – a crime in France – and sexually explicit deepfakes.
French prosecutors suspect tycoon Musk encouraged deepfakes to inflate value of X
While attendance at Monday's hearing was mandatory, French authorities at could not compel Musk, the world's richest person, to appear.
Prosecutors have called the inquiry a “constructive approach” aimed at ensuring X complies with French law.
Musk has accused prosecutors of launching a "politically-motivated criminal investigation" and has refused to cooperate.
X has come under scrutiny from regulators and governments in several countries over issues including content moderation, data practices and compliance with local laws.
The French cybercrime unit previously arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov in 2024 for complicity in organised crime carried out on the messaging app, charges his lawyer has described as "absurd."
Who is Pavel Durov, the enigmatic French-Russian boss of Telegram?
Durov wrote Monday that he France is “losing legitimacy as it weaponises criminal investigations to suppress free speech and privacy”, accusing investigators of being controlled by the government.
(with newswires)
Elon Musk's xAI discussed partnership with Mistral to try and rival OpenAI and Anthropic, report
Musk's xAI eyed Europe's AI giant Mistral in a bid to challenge OpenAI and Anthropic, according to a report.
Elon Musk’s company xAI reportedly held discussions in recent weeks with the French artificial intelligence company Mistral about a partnership to try and rival competitors such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
The tie-up would have included the American code-editing startup Cursor, according to Business Insider, which cited people familiar with the matter.
The report comes as Elon Musk’s other company, SpaceX, which owns xAI, announced a deal with Cursor this week that gives SpaceX the option to buy the company for $60 billion.
Mistral AI is one of Europe’s most highly valued AI firms that develops large language models (LLMs). It is widely seen as the continent’s leading competitor in frontier models in the global AI race.
Musk's AI company, which launched its Grok chatbot in 2023, has been ramping up its infrastructure and AI model performance.
AI companies are in a race to build large clusters of GPUs, or interconnected chips, which can lead to more capable AI models developed at faster rates.
In 2024, Musk built a supercomputer called “Colossus" in Memphis, Tennessee, in just three months. It is said to be the most powerful AI computing cluster in the world, with 200,000 GPUs running on Tesla Megapack batteries. Musk has said it plans to expand to 1 million GPUs.
Euronews has reached out to Mistral and xAI for comment but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.
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