Musk Demands European Union Dissolution
The European Commission hit X with a €120 million ($163 million) fine Friday for violating transparency requirements mandated by the 2022 Digital Services Act, legislation establishing standards for content oversight and corporate accountability. Officials condemned the platform's verification badge system as misleading while citing insufficient advertising disclosures and restricted researcher access to data.
Musk, a frequent critic of Brussels' regulatory framework, unleashed multiple posts arguing that "EU bureaucracy is slowly smothering Europe to death."
The billionaire, who controls Tesla and SpaceX alongside X, advocated for radical restructuring: "The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people," labeling the institution a "bureaucratic Monster."
Musk has previously characterized the EU as a "giant cathedral to bureaucracy," contending excessive rules stifle technological advancement.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the penalty as "an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments." Vice President J.D. Vance claimed the EU penalized X for "not engaging in censorship."
Andrew Puzder, US Ambassador to the EU, denounced the action, stating Washington "opposes censorship and will challenge burdensome regulations that target US companies abroad."
Henna Virkkunen, European Commission Executive Vice President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, justified the enforcement: "deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU."
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski responded to Musk's outburst with a pointed message: "Go to Mars. There's no censorship of Nazi salutes there," alluding to allegations the entrepreneur made a controversial gesture during US President Donald Trump's January 2025 second-term inauguration ceremony.
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