Musk's X Faces Deepfake Scandal, Probes in France, UK, EU

Canada's story is making news on March 21st.

French prosecutors suspect Elon Musk fueled a controversy over sexualized deepfakes on

his platform X to artificially pump up the company's value.

They believe it was tied to plans for a stock market listing in June 2026 for a new entity

merging XAI and SpaceX.

On Tuesday, they notified the U.S. Department of Justice and Lawyers at the Securities

and Exchange Commission about their concerns.

Grock, the AI chatbot on X, sparked outrage by creating explicit images of women and

girls without consent.

Users tagged it to generate or edit photos by putting people in bikinis or removing clothes.

A Wastah group estimates it produced 3 million such images in just 11 days, including 23,000

that seemed to show children.

The backlash led to a huge spike in interest was daily Grock app downloads jumping 72% worldwide

from January 1st to January 19th compared to December.

Prosecutors see some of Musk's posts during the peak as encouragement to keep generating

these non-consensual images.

French authorities have broader probes into X, including claims its algorithm meddled

in politics and spread holocaust denial.

Last month they called Musk for a voluntary interview and rated X's local offices which

he dismissed as a political hit.

Meanwhile, Britain and the European Union have launched their own investigations into

the deep fakes, keeping the pressure on as this story unfolds.