Trump allies back Elon Musk's X after Europe hits it with $140M fine
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A child holds a smartphone displaying the X logo in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 3. Photo: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Top Trump administration officials on Friday decried the European Commission's nearly $140 million (€120 million) fine on Elon Musk's X for violating its moderation law.
Why it matters: The penalty sets up a potential showdown with the Trump administration, which has criticized Europe's content digital market laws as "overseas extortion."
- X did not respond to Axios' request for comment.
State of play: X is the first company to be fined under the European Union's Digital Services Act, a content moderation law that applies to search engines, social media and hosting platforms.
What they're saying: "The European Commission's $140 million fine isn't just an attack on X, it's an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday on X. "The days of censoring Americans online are over."
- "Once again, Europe is fining a successful U.S. tech company for being a successful U.S. tech company," Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr said. "Europe is taxing Americans to subsidize a continent held back by Europe's own suffocating regulations."
- "The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage," Vice President JD Vance said on X on Thursday before the fine was announced.
- The blowback comes the same day the administration put out a National Security Strategy that accused Europe of "censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition."
Driving the news: The Commission fined X over concerns with its blue verification checkmark, ads repository and public data.
- "On X, anyone can pay to obtain the 'verified' status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with," the announcement said. "This deception exposes users to scams."
- The website's advertisement repository doesn't meet transparency and accessibility requirements because of delays in processing and hidden critical information, the commission said.
- Lastly, X is being fined for failure to provide researchers with access to the platform's public data.
What's next: X has 60 working days to tell the commission how it intends to handle the blue checkmarks.
- Within 90 working days, the company has to provide a plan for the advertising and public data issues.
- The European Commission opened an investigation into X in 2023 over allegations of "dissemination of illegal content and the effectiveness of the measures taken to combat information manipulation."
Go deeper: X's new location feature exposes political accounts based outside the U.S.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with reactions from the Trump administration.
