Saturday, December 6, 2025 - The European Union has fined Elon Musk’s platform X one hundred twenty million euros for violating the bloc’s digital rulebook, issuing the first penalty of its kind under the Digital Services Act and igniting tensions with Washington. The commission said X broke transparency rules through the “deceptive design” of its blue checkmark system and by failing to provide clear information on advertising and researcher access to public data.
“This decision is about the transparency of X” and “nothing
to do with censorship,” said the EU’s tech chief, Henna Virkkunen, who pushed
back against criticism from US vice president JD Vance. Before the fine was
even announced, Vance warned Europe against “attacking American companies over
garbage,” prompting Musk to reply, “Much appreciated.”
The DSA probe into X began in December 2023 and found last
year that the platform failed to verify account identities meaningfully after
Musk’s overhaul of the verification system. Under the changes, “anyone can pay”
for a blue badge, the EU said, leaving users exposed to impersonation scams,
fraud and manipulation by malicious actors.
The commission said X also failed to meet transparency
obligations for political and commercial advertising and did not provide
researchers with the data access required by the DSA. Other parts of the
investigation, including probes into illegal content and information
manipulation, remain ongoing.
The case had appeared to stall amid political concerns over
US reaction, particularly after Donald Trump returned to the White House and
Musk re established influence in Washington. Brussels nevertheless moved
forward, with Virkkunen saying the penalty was “proportionate” to the
violations. “We are not here to impose the highest fines. We are here to make
sure that our digital legislation is enforced,” she said.
Under the DSA, companies can be fined up to six percent of
their global annual revenue. The EU could have based its penalty on Musk’s
wider business empire, including Tesla, but opted for what is considered a
moderate figure.
Advocacy group the Center for Countering Digital Hate
welcomed the decision, saying it demonstrated that “no tech platform is above
the laws all corporations have to abide by.” France’s digital affairs minister,
Anne Le Henanff, called it a “historic” moment that showed Europe “is capable
of moving from words to action.”
The White House has repeatedly criticised the EU’s
regulatory approach. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick last week urged
Brussels to rethink its digital rules if it wanted discussions on lowering
steel tariffs to continue. A national security strategy released Friday by the
Trump administration told Europe to “abandon its failed focus on regulatory
suffocation.”
Alongside the X decision, the commission announced that it
had accepted commitments from TikTok to address concerns over advertising
transparency, although the Chinese owned platform remains under DSA
investigation for other issues. EU officials insisted that US political
pressure did not influence their handling of the X case and said the priority
was to ensure the legal basis for enforcement was airtight.
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