Elon Won’t Cooperate With France’s ‘Politically Motivated’ Investigations Into X

Elon Musk announced on Monday that he would not cooperate with French authorities in their “politically motivated criminal investigations” against his social media platform, X.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office opened a probe against X in June in response to allegations by politician Eric Bothorel that the platform was performing “fraudulent data extraction” for “foreign interference purposes.”

A separate complaint said that X “now offers an enormous amount of hateful, racist, anti-LGBT+ and homophobic political content, which aims to skew the democratic debate in France.”

Musk has dismissed the allegations as “completely false” and says the probe “egregiously undermines X’s fundamental right to due process and threatens our users’ rights to privacy and free speech.”

“For these reasons, X has not acceded to the French authorities’ demands, as we have a legal right to do.”

“French authorities have requested access to X’s recommendation algorithm and real-time data about all user posts on the platform in order for several ‘experts’ to analyze the data and purportedly ‘uncover the truth’ about the operation of the X platform,” Musk wrote.

He claimed that two of the proposed experts are openly hostile towards X. One, David Chalaverias, leads a campaign called EscapeX, which calls for a mass exodus from the platform, citing a biased algorithm and “Elon Musk’s influence in European democracies.”

“The involvement of these individuals raises serious concerns about the impartiality, fairness, and political motivations of the investigation, to put it charitably,” Musk wrote.

He also noted that while X is “in the dark” about the exact nature of the allegations, French authorities have labeled the company as an “organized gang.” This designation, which is usually reserved for drug cartels or mafia groups, gives police greater investigative power, including the authorization to conduct searches, wiretaps, and surveillance against Musk and his employees. Noncompliance could result in an arrest warrant.

“Based on what we know so far, X believes that this investigation is distorting French law in order to serve a political agenda and, ultimately, restrict free speech,” he concluded.

This comes amidst a broader European movement to crack down on tech companies in the wake of the European Union’s 2022 Digital Services Act, and increasing disagreement between the United States and Europe on the limits of free speech.

The European Commission has already fined Apple and Meta millions of euros. It is in the middle of a drawn-out investigation into X, and has already found that X violated the Digital Services Act on three accounts, including “the transparency of its advertising; data access for researchers; and the use of blue check marks that connote trust but can be bought — which could constitute deceptive design.”

Musk said the EU tried to pressure X into censoring its users: “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.”

“The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.”