EU imposes €120 million fine on Elon Musk's X
Politico reports that it is the first-ever penalty the EC has imposed under the legislation.
The fine is moderate in size compared to earlier tech penalties the bloc has issued.
The move is expected to inflame tensions between the European Union and the United States over the bloc’s digital rules.
US vice-president JD Vance previously blasted the plans as a fine for “not engaging in censorship”.
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The US has repeatedly pushed the EU to water down its rules around tech in trade talks.
Under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) X, formerly known as Twitter, was found to be in breach of transparency obligations.
The EC said the design of X’s blue checkmark is “deceptive”. When Musk took over the platform, the blue check changed from relating to user verification and instead became a paid feature.
The bloc also said X’s advertising library lacks transparency, adding that it fails to allow researchers access to public data as is required by the law.
The EU opened the probe into X almost two years ago, with the fine being the conclusion to the first part of the inquiry.
JD Vance has criticised the EU's flagship tech law (Image: PATRICK T. FALLON, AFP via Getty Images)
X’s efforts to counter information manipulation and the spread of illegal content are still under review.
Henna Virkkunen, the EC’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, compared the decision on X with one also made on TikTok.
The investigation into TikTok’s ad library was closed with no fine as the company offered to change the design of its service in response.
Virkkunen said: “We’re not here to impose the highest fines, we’re here to make sure that our digital legislation is enforced. If you comply with our rules, you don’t get a fine.”
Companies can be fined up to 6% of their global annual turnover under the DSA.
Musk’s range of companies have higher revenues than those X is estimated to have, which are believed to be in the low single-digit billions.
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Virkkunen said the size of the fine was “proportionate”, and that it was calculated considering “the nature of these infringements, their gravity in terms of affected EU users, and their duration.”
When asked to clarify how the amount was calculated, she said that it cannot be “drilled down to a simple economic formula.”
US officials have previously threatened to retaliate against the DSA with trade tariffs, claiming the legislation amounted to censorship.
Vance, on Thursday night, said that the EU should not be attacking US companies.
He wrote on X: “Rumors [sic] swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage.”
Musk said in response: “Much appreciated.”
In response to Vance’s remarks, Virkkunen told reporters: “The DSA is having not to do with censorship, this decision is about the transparency of X.”
Paula Pinho, the EC’s spokesperson, told a daily press briefing: “On this subject, we have agreed to disagree with the way that some people in the U.S. look at our legislation. It's not about censorship, and we have repeated several times from this podium, so on this we really agree to disagree on how it is perceived.”
Musk has not addressed the fine directly, but has retweeted criticism of the DSA and EU on his X page.
