U.S. President Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday (December 8, 2025) called a fine imposed on Elon Musk’s social media company X by European Union tech regulators “a nasty one” and stated he did not understand how they could justify the shift.
X was fined 120 million euros ($140 million) by EU tech regulators last week for breaching online content rules.
“Europe is going in some bad directions,” Mr. Trump notified reporters at a White Hoapply event, declareing he expected to obtain a full report on the EU fine later on Monday.
“I don’t see how they can do that,” Mr. Trump stated. He stated Mr. Musk had not called him to inquire for support on the issue.
“Europe has to be very careful,” he added.
Last week, Mr. Musk dismissed the penalty on his platform, replying “Bullshit” under a European Commission post announcing the fine and reposting messages criticizing the decision.
“Freedom of speech is the bedrock of democracy. The only way to know what you are voting for,” he wrote.
U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and FCC Chairman Brfinishan Carr, denounced the shift as an attack on American companies.
EU regulators stated X violated transparency obligations, including failing to provide researchers access to public data, maintaining an incomplete advertising repository, and applying deceptive design for its blue checkmark verification system.
EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen deffinished the fine as proportionate and stressed the DSA “has nothing to do with censorship”. The European Commision stated its laws do not tarobtain any nationality and it is merely deffinishing its digital and democratic standards.
TikTok, charged in May for failing to maintain a public ad repository to support detect scam ads, avoided a fine by pledging improvements to its ad library and urged regulators to enforce the rules consistently across platforms.
Published – December 09, 2025 03:02 am IST
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