According to Xinhua News Agency, on December 6 local time, American entrepreneur Elon Musk criticized the European Union's decision to fine his social media platform X €120 million (approximately RMB 980 million), saying he would respond to senior EU officials involved in the penalty decision.
According to a report by politico.eu on the 6th, Musk posted on his personal social media platform: "The EU not only issued this ridiculous fine to Platform X, but also listed me as a target of punishment. This is simply absurd! Therefore, our countermeasures should not only be directed at the EU, but also directly at the individuals who took this action against me."
Musk did not elaborate on the specific countermeasures against the fine, nor did he specify which individuals would be directly held accountable. However, he later posted that "the EU should perhaps be abolished, returning sovereignty to individual countries so that governments can better represent their people."
Screenshot of Musk's post on his personal social media platform.
On December 5th local time, the European Union issued its first "non-compliance decision" under the Digital Services Act, finding Elon Musk's social media platform X guilty of transparency violations and imposing a fine of €120 million. The EU has given X 60 days to provide a solution and 90 days to implement corrective measures.
The European Commission believes that the platform's blue V verification feature, after being changed from a "verified user ID" to a paid service, is misleading; furthermore, its advertising library lacks transparency and it failed to grant researchers access to public data. A Commission official revealed that the fine will be pursued against Musk himself and his AI lab, xAI, which acquired the X platform earlier this year.
The EU's fine has drawn strong condemnation from the US government.
According to politico.eu, after details of the fine were leaked in advance, US Vice President Vance criticized the EU, saying, "The EU should be supporting freedom of speech, not suppressing American companies without cause." When asked about Vance's remarks, Hannah Verkunin, the European Commission's Executive Vice-President in charge of technology sovereignty, responded, "The Digital Services Act has nothing to do with censorship; the core of this penalty is the transparency issue of the X platform."
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also posted on his personal social media platform, stating: "This fine is not just targeting Platform X, but rather an attack by a foreign government on all American technology platforms and even the entire American people."
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Lando also joined the criticism, stating, "European countries expect the U.S. to provide them with security guarantees, yet they use the EU to deliberately undermine U.S. security interests. This is absolutely unacceptable."
It should be noted that this fine is only the first phase of the EU's investigation into the X platform, and the EU will conduct further reviews of the content disseminated on the platform.
Politico.eu believes this incident further exacerbates the already strained relationship between the EU and the Trump administration. Previously, US President Trump had warned that if the EU continued to impose penalties on US technology companies, the US would impose more tariffs on the EU. This issue has been a focal point of contention in EU-US trade negotiations for the past few months, with the US consistently urging the EU to repeal the Digital Services Act and other related enforcement measures.
