Investigators from the Paris prosecutor’s cyber-crime unit raided the offices of X in the French capital on Tuesday in what Elon Musk described as a ‘political attack’. The raid was part of an inquiry into whether X, which Musk has owned since 2022, has violated French law. In particular, the prosecutor’s office said it was investigating complicity ‘in possession or organised distribution of images of children of a pornographic nature…sexual deepfakes and fraudulent data extraction by an organised group’. X has denied any wrongdoing.

Musk and the former chief executive of X, Linda Yaccarino, have been asked to attend hearings in April. Yaccarino, who left the company last year, echoed Musk’s declaration, accusing France of waging ‘a political vendetta against Americans’.

If there is a ‘vendetta’ against X, it began in February last year when Eric Bothorel, an MP in Macron’s centrist party, accused the platform of manipulating its algorithms ‘in several elections concerning European countries’ – something X also denies. This, he claimed, posed a ‘real danger and threat to our democracies’.

One suspects Macron’s ultimate goal is to ban X from France

The previous month Musk had levelled a similar charge against one of Macron’s........

© The Spectator