Elon Musk’s X hit with $140 million fine in Europe

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By Editor_1
Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, Nov. 19, 2025. The European Union on Friday (Dec. 5, 2025) fined X, Musk’s social media company, $140 million for violating one of the bloc’s online transparency laws - Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

By Adam Satariano and Kate Conger

BRUSSELS – The European Union on Friday (5) fined X, the social platform owned by Elon Musk, $140 million for violating one of the bloc’s major laws targeting the technology industry. The case has been seen as a test of European officials’ willingness to aggressively regulate tech companies at risk of antagonizing the Trump administration.

X is the first company to be fined under the EU’s Digital Services Act, a sweeping law intended to force large internet companies to protect their platforms against manipulation and illicit content. The Trump administration has criticized the policy as an attack on free speech and American tech firms.

Regulators in Brussels said the penalty against X was not about free speech, but the company’s lack of controls to prevent the platform from being abused. That included X’s “deceptive design” that allowed users to mislead others about their identities, opaque advertising practices and refusal to provide independent researchers with access to public data.

“Deceiving users with blue check marks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU,” Henna Virkkunen, the executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy for the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement. “We are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”

X did not respond to requests for comment. Musk can appeal the ruling, which could set up a prolonged legal battle.

The 120-million euro fine is smaller than others issued in recent years by EU regulators against large tech companies and modest relative to Musk’s overall wealth of more than $450 billion. It landed at a delicate moment for the EU’s relationship with the United States on issues like the war in Ukraine. The X penalty had been expected to be announced earlier this year, but was delayed during trade negotiations between the EU and the United States.

A European Commission spokesperson said the fine was proportionate to X’s violations. The penalty also may not be the last X faces in the EU. A second, more far-reaching investigation is underway into the company’s hands-off approach to policing user-generated content.

Vice President JD Vance criticized the EU on Thursday before the penalty. “The EU should be supporting free speech, not attacking American companies over garbage,” Vance said on X.

Musk responded to Vance a few hours later: “Much appreciated.”

The EU has considered dialling back some regulation of the tech industry to encourage economic growth and advancements in areas like artificial intelligence. But officials have said they remain committed to enforcing laws like the Digital Services Act.

The digital law was passed in 2022 to create more oversight of social media, which many European officials blame for exacerbating political divisions and spreading disinformation. The inquiry into X’s practices, which started in 2023, was one of the first major announced cases.

In taking on one of Musk’s companies, EU officials have had to account for wider geopolitical considerations. In addition to Musk’s ties to President Donald Trump, one of his companies, Starlink, provides key satellite communication technology to Ukrainian troops fighting against Russia. Musk has played a growing role in European politics, backing far-right groups like the Alternative for Germany party and British anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson.

On Friday, after two years of investigation, European regulators said X violated several aspects of the Digital Services Act related to transparency. That included a subscription service that the company offers that allows accounts to have a blue check mark, which regulators said deceives people into believing a real verified user is behind the account.

X had also failed to create an adequate public database to inform the public of the advertisers on its site, a rule seen as helping users understand how a social network could be manipulated. The law requires companies to maintain a repository so that sites can be monitored for deceitful practices like scam ads and fake political advertisements.

Regulators said X was also not complying with a rule to give researchers wider access to data that could be used for studying topics like political polarization, disinformation and how content spreads on the platform.

On Friday, TikTok was able to avoid an EU fine by agreeing to provide a more complete database for ads on its services, ending a separate investigation.

Under the Digital Services Act, fines can be as high as 6% of a company’s global annual revenue. X is a subsidiary of Musk’s privately held AI startup, xAI, which does not publicly disclose its revenue.

Josephine Ballon, the managing director of HateAid, a German organization that has tracked the spread of Holocaust denial and other illicit content on X, said stronger enforcement was needed.

“The fine is long overdue but insufficient,” she said in a statement. “The EU must keep at it and not bow to geopolitical pressure from the US.”

-New York Times

 

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