Elon Musk’s X fails to pay $610,500 eSafety fine over child sex reporting failure

The government is considering further action after social media platform X failed to pay a $600,000 fine over its inaction on tackling online sexual crimes.

The government is considering further action after social media platform X failed to pay its $600,000 fine over it’s inaction on tackling online sexual crimes. Picture: Alain Jocard/ AFP

Elon Musk has failed to pay a $610,500 fine slapped on his social media company X, over its failure to answer questions on how it removes and tackles child sexual exploitation and sexual extortion.

In October, X was slapped with the fine for failing to respond to a legal notice demanding tech giants disclose how they were preventing and managing illegal material from being circulated on their platforms.

While the infringement asked for payment within 28 days, the office of the eSafety Commissioner confirmed on Wednesday that X had failed to settle the debt.

“Twitter/X was given an Infringement Notice for a sum of $610,500 for failure to comply with the non-periodic reporting notice given to it in February this year,” a spokesperson said.

“Twitter/X has not paid the infringement notice within the allotted timeframe and eSafety is now considering further steps.”

The office of the eSafety Commissioner confirmed X has failed to pay the fine. Picture: Chris Delmas/ AFP

While both Google and X failed to adequately respond to a number of questions in the legal notice, X’s noncompliance was found to be more serious.

eSafety said sections were left entirely blank, with X also providing answers which were incomplete and/or inaccurate.

Questions around the number of safety and public policy staff still employed at Twitter/X following Musk’s October 2022 acquisition and subsequent job cuts, were also left unanswered.

Google was also issued a formal warning for providing a number of generic responses to specific information and “providing aggregated information when asked questions about specific services”.

The fine was issued after X failed to answer questions about how it’s tackling online sexual crimes. Picture: Alain Jocard/ AFP

At the time, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant condemned the behaviour of the tech giants.

“Twitter/X has stated publicly that tackling child sexual exploitation is the number 1 priority for the company, but it can’t just be empty talk, we need to see words backed up with tangible action,” she said.

“If Twitter/X and Google can’t come up with answers to key questions about how they are tackling child sexual exploitation they either don’t want to answer for how it might be perceived publicly or they need better systems to scrutinise their own operations.

“Both scenarios are concerning to us and suggest they are not living up to their responsibilities and the expectations of the Australian community.”