The European Commission has fined Elon Musk’s X €120 million for breaking the European Union’s (EU) digital transparency rules, in a move that risks escalating tensions with the US government.
The EU on Friday said the social media platform’s violations included breaching its regulations for transparency, providing insufficient access to data and the deceptive design of its blue ticks for verified accounts.
The fine is the first sanction under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a set of rules for large online players to police their platforms more aggressively.The penalty against X was lower than expected, as the EU can impose fines of up to 6 per cent of a group’s yearly worldwide revenue.
While analysts have forecast X’s revenue will increase to about $2.3 billion (€2 billion) this year, a commission official said it had also considered Musk himself — a move that could have dramatically increased the potential penalty.
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“We are not here to impose the highest fines,” said the EU’s digital chief Henna Virkkunen. “We are here to make sure that our legislation is enforced. If you comply with our rules, you don’t get a fine.”
The rules have become a flashpoint between the EU and US Big Tech companies, backed by Donald Trump’s administration, which claim the EU is unfairly targeting American groups and infringing freedom of speech principles championed by the Maga movement.
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That criticism has made the EU’s investigation against X politically sensitive, particularly given Musk’s key role during Trump’s campaign and within the US government at the start of the administration.
On Thursday evening, US vice-president JD Vance hit out at the EU over its investigation into X. He wrote on X that “the EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage”.
Mr Virkkunen on Friday told reporters that the EU’s action against the social media platform had “nothing to do with censorship. This decision is about the transparency of X.”
The outcome of the probe was initially expected before the summer after Brussels found X in preliminary breach of its regulations last year. The delay was widely seen as a move to avoid reigniting tensions amid US trade talks but the commission has said it wanted to get the case legally and technically right.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
X now has 60 days to come up with solutions to address the EU’s concerns and 90 days to implement the changes, or it could face additional fines.
The EU also has another probe against X under the DSA, which was launched at the end of 2023, over whether the social media platform is doing enough to counter the spread of illegal content in the bloc. That investigation, which is more politically sensitive, is continuing.
The fine against X follows a series of new probes launched by the commission against US Big Tech groups over the past month.
On Thursday, Brussels opened an antitrust investigation into Meta over its new policy on artificial intelligence providers’ access to WhatsApp. Last month, it launched probes into Google’s parent company Alphabet over its ranking of news outlets in search results, as well as against Amazon and Microsoft over their cloud computing services.
Brussels has vowed to keep enforcing its digital regulation despite the risk of potential retaliation by Washington and regular criticism from the US. - Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
