The Paris public prosecutor's office announced that French authorities alerted their American counterparts to suspicions that Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk attempted to inflate the value of his company, SpaceX.
According to the public prosecutor's office, on Saturday, it suspects that Elon Musk encouraged the use of deepfake technology for sexually explicit content on the "X" platform to artificially increase the value of his company.
The Public Prosecution explained that "the controversy surrounding the deepfake sexually explicit videos produced by the 'Groc' program (for the artificial intelligence of the 'X' platform) may have been deliberately orchestrated to artificially inflate the value of 'SpaceX' and 'XAI'" in preparation for "the planned initial public offering in June 2026 of the new entity resulting from the merger of 'SpaceX' and 'XAI'."
The public prosecutor's office added that an "automatic request for information" was sent on March 17 to the US Department of Justice, via the Office of International Mutual Legal Assistance of the French Ministry of Justice, as well as to French lawyers representing the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which is responsible for regulating and monitoring financial markets.
This request was made to the US authorities while the Paris prosecutor's office is conducting an investigation into the "X" social networking network, under which its French offices were searched in early February.
The investigations led by the Paris prosecutor's office are focused on various suspicions, including in particular the use of biased algorithms, complicity in the possession of child pornography, and the distribution or making available of child pornography and fake sex videos.
Musk commented on a news report published by Agence France-Presse on Saturday in French on the X platform, saying, "They suffer from a mental disability."
