Elon Musk wants ‘bureaucratic monster’ European Union to be abolished after $210m X fine

The social media platform was accused of multiple breaches, including failing to disclose basic information about its adverts, leading to JD Vance and Marco Rubio condemning the EU

Musk, the CEO of X, has not reacted well to the EU’s ban

Elon Musk has called for the abolition of the European Union after it fined his social media platform €120m ($210.5m) for breaching digital services law. He called the EU a “bureaucratic monster” after the US accused it of “undermining political liberty and sovereignty”.

X is the first company to be fined under the EU’s Digital Services Act. The law, which came into effect in 2022, imposes obligations on 19 platforms with more than 45 million active monthly users in the EU, including X, Facebook, Shein and PornHub. They have been told to take more responsibility for their content and publish more details about their operations.

The European Commission said X’s use of blue ticks for “verifying” users who paid for its service was deceptive because it exposed others to scams and manipulation. It also said X had failed to disclose basic information about adverts, including who had paid for them, and refused to comply with its duty to give researchers access to its data.

In response, Musk railed against “EU woke Stasi commissars” and threatened to retaliate against the individual officials behind the ruling.

He said they would “understand the full meaning of the Streisand effect”, named after the singer and actor Barbra Streisand, in which efforts to suppress or censor information only bring it to more people’s attention.

On Sunday, X shut the European Commission’s advertising account on the platform, alleging that it had abused the software to inflate its reach by miscategorising links as videos.

Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, said the fine was an “attack on all American tech platforms and the American people”. JD Vance, the US Vice-President, wrote on X before the fine was announced: “The EU should be supporting free speech, not attacking American companies over garbage.”
The Times