Elon Musk cries political conspiracy in France

While France has launched a criminal investigation into billionaire Elon Musk’s social network X, Musk is denouncing a political plot via the platform’s official accounts.

The Global Government Affairs account, managed by X, claims that the procedure is entirely politically motivated and rejects the request for access to the platform’s algorithm.

Musk’s app claims in its statement that such a request threatens its users’ “rights to privacy and freedom of expression”.

For their part, the French authorities are justifying their investigation with suspicions of manipulation of X’s algorithm for the purposes of “foreign interference”, in alleged violation of French law.

Prosecutors opened the investigation to determine whether X had broken the law by modifying its algorithms and fraudulently collecting data from its French users.

X accuses the French experts involved in the investigation of having, in the past, run campaigns encouraging users to leave the platform, such as “HelloQuitteX” or “Escape X”.

Elon Musk’s company says this raises serious concerns about the impartiality, fairness and political motivations of the proceedings.