The story so far: On December 6, 2025, Tesla CEO Elon Musk used his social media platform X to call for an end to the European Union, posting, “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people[.]” His outburst was trigged by a 120 million euro (around $140 million) fine slapped by the European Commission against X a day earlier, marking the first non-compliance decision under the bloc’s landmark tech regulation.
Why was Elon Musk’s X fined?
X, formerly Twitter, was fined by the European Commission for breaching its transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The EU regulator opened formal proceedings on December 18, 2023 in order to evaluate whether X disseminated illegal information and whether it could effectively combat the manipulation of information. The investigation is ongoing, but the European Commission has fined X over platform-specific features and policies that violate its DSA.
“Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU. The DSA protects users. The DSA gives researchers the way to uncover potential threats. The DSA restores trust in the online environment,” said Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, in an official press release.
She added this was the DSA’s first non-compliance decision, with X being held responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.
What did the EU investigation find?
At the heart of the matter is X’s controversial blue check mark system. Before Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, the social media platform assigned blue check marks to notable individuals such as government officials, celebrities, and journalists after inspecting their account credentials, to help others verify these vetted account handles on sight.
However, Musk has always soundly criticised this legacy check mark system. After he bought Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion, the billionaire made the iconic verification symbol a product that anyone could buy. This led to a surge in account impersonation, as users ranging from pranksters to crypto scammers bought the blue tick mark to make themselves look more legitimate. In fact, even members of the Taliban temporarily had blue check marks.
As confusion spread, X began deploying a mix of check marks — gold, blue, grey, and company logo-based ones — to differentiate verified users from unverified ones. These categories tended to overlap.
Sounds confusing? The European Commission thought so too. It stated that X’s blue check mark for so-called verified accounts “deceives users”.
Apart from the blue verification check mark issue, the European Commission pointed to X’s advertisement repository, which it said did not meet the transparency and accessibility requirements of the DSA. Furthermore, the regulator said that X failed to meet its DSA obligations to give researchers access to the platform’s public data.
These two points are linked, as the regulator pointed out that X’s design made it difficult for researchers to identify who was paying for certain advertisements running on X, and whether there were any risks associated with the ads. The regulator also cited excessive processing delays.
“The fine issued today was calculated taking into account the nature of these infringements, their gravity in terms of affected EU users, and their duration,” said the European Commission.
The regulator added X had 60 working days to inform it about measures it was taking to fix the deceptive use of blue checkmarks, and 90 working days to submit an action plan to handle issues relating to its advertising repository and researchers’ access to public data.
What was Elon Musk’s reaction?
Since December 6, Elon Musk has both posted and re-shared multiple comments, memes, and infographics insulting the European Union and calling for it to be broken up.
“The EU Commission should be disbanded in favor of an elected body and the EU President should be directly elected. The current system is rule by bureaucracy, not democracy,” he posted on December 10. Musk also reshared a post criticising the EU for not fining Meta on similar grounds, since the WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook-parent also has a paid blue check mark verification system.
Furthermore, X executive Nikita Bier claimed that the regulator had violated platform rules while announcing its fine against X, and said that its ad account was terminated as a result.
U.S. President Donald Trump also reacted to the news of the X fine, calling it “nasty” and noting that “Europe is going in some bad directions”. He added that it had to be “careful” but clarified that Musk did not ask him to intervene in the matter. Trump administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance both criticised the move as well.
U.S. Ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, slammed “EU regulatory overreach targeting American innovation” and said that the Trump administration would “challenge burdensome regulations that target US companies abroad.”
Musk claimed that the EU imposed the “crazy fine” on both X and him personally, suggesting that he might in turn respond not just to the EU but also individual regulators.
It is not yet clear if he intends to formally pursue legal action.
Published – December 12, 2025 07:17 pm IST