Elon Musk slams Spanish PM as X protests French raid: Here's what we know

After French authorities raided X's (formerly Twitter) headquarters in Paris, Elon Musk responded by turning his focus to the Spanish Prime Minister.

Elon Musk launched a scathing attack on the Spanish Premier Pedro Sánchez, calling him a “true fascist totalitarian” after the latter proposed a ban of social media use among teens.

Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Dirty Sánchez is a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain."

The Spanish premier said on Tuesday, February 3, terming social media a “failed state where laws are ignored and crimes are tolerated,” challenging the tech billionaire over his use of X to “amplify disinformation” regarding the decision by Madrid to regularize 500,000 undocumented immigrants.

Musk’s furious response is seen in the backdrop of the French authorities raiding the X headquarters on Tuesday, February 3, amid ongoing cybercrime probes in France.

According to the Paris Public Prosecutor's office, the raid was part of an ongoing cybercrime investigation into the alleged manipulation of algorithms, data theft, and the use of the site’s AI chatbot, Grok, to produce child abuse imagery and sexually explicit deepfakes.

In mid-January, the company at last implemented the technological measures to prevent the practice.

The raid on X headquarters in Paris marks the first time that Elon Musk had been called by prosecutors over the use of Grok, X’s artificial intelligence tool, for generating sexually explicit imagery of adults and women without their consent.

Several investigations have since been opened into Grok's parent company, xAI.

The latest one came from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office on Tuesday afternoon, February 3, just hours after the raid was carried out by French police.