EU Slaps Musk’s X with €120M Fine as US Free Speech Tensions Rise
Elon Musk’s X social network received a €120 million ($140 million) fine, which was lower than anticipated, for breaching the European Union’s contentious content-moderation law. This decision is poised to escalate tensions with the White House regarding issues of free speech and technology regulation. The European Commission has issued its inaugural penalty under the Digital Services Act, determining that X’s paid-for blue tick symbol misled users. Additionally, the platform obstructed researchers’ access to data and did not adequately establish an advertising repository. The fine was not determined by the revenues generated from Musk’s extensive private business empire in space, infrastructure, and neuroscience, which regulators had contemplated focusing on. The penalty represents a mere sliver of Musk’s $467 billion fortune and follows months of significant pressure from Donald Trump, who has consistently criticized the bloc’s stringent fines and efforts to regulate American tech firms. Despite the relatively light penalty, the standoff reveals a growing rift regarding digital sovereignty and the definition of fundamental rights such as free speech and privacy in the internet era. “The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage,” US Vice President JD Vance stated. Representatives for X and the White House did not provide an immediate response to requests for comment.
Although the investigation commenced in December 2023, it gained heightened political relevance as Musk endorsed Trump’s campaign and served as a close adviser to the president, holding the position of head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency for several months at the beginning of his current term. “This has nothing to do with censorship, this is about transparency,” Henna Virkkunen stated, noting that the precedent will aid in accelerating future investigations. “It took time because our teams wanted to ensure that we had a solid legal foundation.” A commission official stated that X has 60 days to devise solutions to address the issues and 90 days to implement the necessary changes, or it may incur further fines. The fine will be issued to Musk and xAI, his artificial intelligence lab that competes with OpenAI, which acquired the X platform earlier this year, according to the official. Under the DSA, which took effect in 2023, the bloc can impose fines on online platforms amounting to as much as 6% of their yearly global revenue for not addressing illegal content and disinformation or for failing to adhere to transparency regulations. The commission official stated that the fine was determined by the “principle of proportionality” rather than revenues.
The commission had earlier suggested that revenue generated from Musk’s complete private business empire might serve as the foundation for a fine. SpaceX stands as the most significant component of Musk’s private enterprises, with anticipated revenue of $15.5 billion by 2025. According to sources, X is expected to generate approximately $2.3 billion in advertising sales this year. The EU is investigating several other significant US tech companies — including Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Meta Platforms Inc. — under the DSA and the Digital Markets Act, which seeks to prevent firms from exploiting their market dominance. The bloc has recently imposed fines on Apple and Meta under its digital antitrust regulations, amounting to €500 million and €200 million, respectively. It has also imposed significant penalties on other companies, including over $8 billion in fines against Google and a distinct order for Apple to reimburse Ireland €13 billion in back taxes under conventional competition law. The EU is yet to reach conclusions on various other possible DSA violations linked to the X investigation, which may lead to further penalties in the future.
Investigations into more serious concerns regarding X’s policing of illegal content, election disinformation, and the use of Community Notes have not yet progressed to the commission’s preliminary-findings stage. Musk has previously stated his intention to contest any fine in court, a move that could postpone the payment of the fine for several years.
