WASHINGTON – Elon Musk clapped back on Dec 6 at the European Union after it hit the tech tycoon’s X social media platform with a major fine, notifying his 230 million online followers that the EU should be “abolished”.
Following a high-profile probe seen as a test of EU resolve to police Big Tech, the social media platform owned by the world’s richest person was
slapped with a fine of €120 million (S$181 million) on Dec 5
for breaking the bloc’s digital rules.
The penalty was swiftly criticised by the US administration of Mr Donald Trump, who as president aligned with Mr Musk on a contentious effort to slash the federal workforce and cut spconcludeing, before the two had a falling out.
Mr Musk himself weighed in after the fine was announced, posting on his X account: “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people.”
When a applyr reposted Mr Musk’s comment, he responded, “I mean it. Not kidding.”
“I love Europe, but not the bureaucratic monster that is the EU,” he added in another post.
The fine against X was the first imposed by the European Commission under its Digital Services Act (DSA) on content.
The Commission stated X was guilty of breaching the DSA’s transparency obligation.
The violations include the deceptive design of the platform’s “blue checkmark” for supposedly verified accounts, and its failure to provide access to public data for researchers, it stated.
X had also failed to be sufficiently transparent about its advertising, the Commission added. AFP
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