1 month ago
10 ARTICLE AD
The European Union is considering levying fines against Elon Musk over his unwillingness to cooperate with an investigation into X’s moderation and advertising policies. According to a report from Bloomberg, the EU may consider the revenue of SpaceX, Neuralink, and the Boring Company as part of Musk’s net-worth. If they do that, the cost of the fines would skyrocket.
Unnamed EU officials told Bloomberg about the potential jump in fines. The EU started investigating Musk and X in 2023 after its new Digital Services Act went into effect. In July, an EU commission formally found that X had deceived its users and violated EU law. At issue was X’s new policy of selling “authenticity” to anyone in the form of a blue checkmark and refusing to be transparent with regards to advertising.
“We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth,” Musk said in a post on X in response to the ruling. The fines for Musk’s alleged trespasses would be 6% of the site’s yearly global revenue. The EU is currently deciding if that 6% should apply to all Musk’s wholly owned companies and not just X. Tesla is off the hook because it’s a public company that Musk doesn’t completely control. Bloomberg’s source also told them that the fine could be avoided entirely, if only Musk would “satisfy the watchdog’s concerns.”
The last time Musk had a fight like this he folded. He went to war with Brazil in August over the country’s content moderation policies. A Brazilian supreme court justice wanted Musk to follow the law of the land and Musk balked. The billionaire, as always, claimed it was a free speech issue. Brazil said it had some very basic demands such as asking X to appointment a permanent legal representative in Brazil. For a month or so, X was officially unavailable in Brazil.
Brazil was one of X’s largest markets and it was cash Musk couldn’t afford to lose. He paid $44 billion for the site in 2022. Now it’s worth around $10 billion. Traditional advertisers have fled and X is now taking money from anyone who’ll pay. I’ve seen paid advertisements for piracy sites and a medical website touting ivermectin as a replacement for chemotherapy. Musk caved and gave Brazil what it wanted and the app returned.
Musk has also repeatedly capitulated to demands to censor X from countries with more authoritarian demands such as Turkey and India. And in September, he coordinated with the Trump campaign to censor an internal campaign report on JD Vance. X also banned Ken Klippenstein, the journalist who shared the report, but later reinstated his account.
