Elon Musk faces Paris interview today as US refuses to help French probe of X

Elon Musk is due to sit down with French investigators on Monday, the latest chapter in a criminal probe that has been closing in on his social media platform X for more than a year. Whether the world's richest man actually shows up in Paris is another question.

The Paris prosecutor's office set the April 20 date back in February, the same week its cybercrime unit raided X's offices over suspected offenses linked to content on the platform. Musk has dismissed the whole exercise as a "political attack," and X declined to say on the record whether he intends to attend.

The case, which prosecutors first opened in January 2025, has swelled since they added concerns about X's Grok chatbot. Investigators say Grok helped generate non-consensual sexual deepfakes, including some involving children. Prosecutors in February listed the suspected offenses as complicity in the possession or organized distribution of child sexual abuse material, infringement of image rights through sexual deepfakes and suspected fraudulent data extraction by an organized group. X has called the allegations "baseless."

Musk's willingness to appear looks shakier after a weekend Wall Street Journal report. The paper said the US Justice Department told French authorities in writing that it will not help the investigation, and accused them of misusing the American justice system. Musk responded on X with three words: "indeed, this needs to stop."

He has skipped process before. In September 2024, the tech billionaire failed to attend a court-ordered appearance in Los Angeles tied to a US Securities and Exchange Commission probe of his Twitter takeover.

Linda Yaccarino, X's former chief executive, is also on the summons list and led the company during part of the window prosecutors are examining. She called the raid and earlier summons a "political vendetta against Americans" in a post on X.

The stakes keep widening. Regulators in the United Kingdom and the European Union are running their own inquiries into Grok and X, and similar action has spread elsewhere. French investigators have lined up several X employees as witnesses between April 20 and April 24, a sign they plan to keep building the case whether or not Musk walks through the door.

X, for its part, has framed the raid and the broader probe as a threat to free speech and due process, and the company has vowed to defend itself. Paris has signaled it intends to test that defense in court.