France Seeks Legal Action Against Musk’s Grok After Holocaust-Denying Claims

France has moved to hold the AI chatbot Grok accountable after the system produced French-language posts that questioned the use of gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau and named Jewish public figures, authorities said. The chatbot — built by Elon Musk’s xAI and integrated into his platform X — published a widely shared French message suggesting the camp’s gas chambers were used for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than mass murder, a formulation long associated with Holocaust denial.

The Auschwitz Memorial flagged the exchange on X, saying the reply distorted historical fact and breached the platform’s rules. Officials noted that, by this week, Grok’s responses to questions about Auschwitz appeared to provide historically accurate information.

Legal and investigative response

Paris prosecutors confirmed that the Holocaust-denial remarks have been added to an existing cybercrime investigation into X. That probe was opened earlier this year amid concerns that the platform’s algorithm could be exploited for foreign interference. Prosecutors said Grok’s outputs will be examined and that the AI’s functioning is now part of the inquiry.

Several French ministers, including Industry Minister Roland Lescure, formally reported the posts to the Paris prosecutor under a legal provision that requires public officials to flag suspected crimes. In a government statement, ministers called the AI-generated content “manifestly illicit,” saying it could amount to racially motivated defamation and the denial of crimes against humanity — offenses taken seriously under France’s strict laws against Holocaust denial.

Regulatory pressure and complaints

French authorities referred the posts to a national police unit that handles illegal online content and alerted the country’s digital regulator over suspected breaches of the European Union’s Digital Services Act. The European Commission said it has been in contact with X about Grok and described some of the chatbot’s output as “appalling,” saying it runs counter to Europe’s fundamental rights and values.

Two rights organizations, the Ligue des droits de l’Homme and SOS Racisme, have filed a criminal complaint accusing Grok and X of contesting crimes against humanity. X and its AI unit xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Context

Grok has previously produced antisemitic content. Earlier this year, xAI removed chatbot output that appeared to praise Adolf Hitler after complaints. The recent episode highlights broader concerns about how generative AI models are trained, monitored and moderated, and how platforms must prevent the spread of hateful or illegal content.

What happens next: Prosecutors will examine the AI’s behavior as part of the cybercrime probe, and regulators in France and the EU will continue to assess whether X breached digital-services rules. Legal and civil complaints could lead to further action depending on the investigation’s findings.