The European Union has fined Elon Musk and his company X €120 million (~$140 million) for claims that X violated the Digital Services Act. The DSA can impose penalties on platforms and individuals if they are deemed to have enabled “illegal content.” Platforms must also open up data to amorphous “researchers.”
The EU posted the penalty on Friday, and the statement has now been viewed over 15 million times.
Today, we fined X for non-compliance with transparency obligations under the DSA.
We’re holding X accountable for:
🔹Deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark’
🔹Lack of transparency of its advertising repository
🔹Failure to provide access to public data for researchers↓
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) December 5, 2025
Musk, who is not exactly a wallflower, responded, stating: “The ‘EU’ imposed this crazy fine not just on X, but also on me personally, which is even more insane! Therefore, it would seem appropriate to apply our response not just to the EU, but also to the individuals who took this action against me.”
Musk was responding to a statement by Senator Ted Cruz, who declared that an attack on a great American job creator is an attack on the free speech of every American.
The fisticuffs between the EU and the US could evolve into the Trump Administration seeking to penalize a European firm (or firms) similarly, potentially leading to one-upmanship.
Member of the European Parliament Veronika Cifrova Ostrihonova, from the social-liberal Progressive Slovakia party, described the penalty as a measure to protect the masses from “oligarchs.”
“Historic first fine under the #DSA — and a clear signal to Big Tech: in Europe, rules apply to everyone, even billionaires. If oligarchs such as Elon Musk think this is “censorship”, they might want to learn how European democracy works. And what does it actually mean the freedom of speech. Childish posts and reposts will not undermine the EU. Europeans vote in free and fair elections and they will not bow to foreign pressure. Neither from Russia, nor from anywhere else. And we don’t bow to foreign pressure either. We protect Europeans.”
Musk continued to reflect on a statement last year where he claimed that the EU offered X an “illegal secret deal” which required the platform to “quietly censor speech,” adding that if they submitted, no penalty would be forthcoming. X chose not to submit.
The dust-up is emblematic of a growing rift between the EU and the United States.
Some observers see Europe as in systemic decline, unable to innovate due to the aggressive regulation and high taxes, which stifles entrepreneurship, while channeling limited resources to bureaucracies and away from more efficient public markets.
Graphs depicting the growing disparity between EU economic growth and that of the US are widely shared on social media platforms. From 2008 to 2023, US GDP rose by 87%, while the EU GDP grew by 13.5% over the same period.
Today, almost all big tech firms were founded in the US, with Europe falling further and further behind.
Europeans are aware of this dynamic, but little progress has been made to address the shortcomings. Mario Draghi, former President of the European Central Bank, published a report highlighting these concerns. The “Draghi Report” said “innovation is blocked at the next stage: we are failing to translate innovation into commercialisation, and innovative companies that want to scale up in Europe are hindered at every stage by inconsistent and restrictive regulations.” It added that Europe “lacks focus,” and “dynamism.” This lack of growth, driven by crushing regulation and entrenched social programs, has led some to cynically claim that the EU can’t generate growth domestically, so they will pilfer it from US companies under the guise of obtuse fines.
The question of what constitutes free speech is a sore point for free speech absolutists like Musk and other conservatives. Many more conservative individuals see free speech as including speech that may be distasteful. But having a central arbiter of defining which speech is free and what is not allowed is subjective, swinging with political changes, and favoring those in power. This point of view is exacerbated by the fact that European Commission leaders are appointed rather than elected; thus, the EU is guided mainly by unelected officials who tend to guard their power.
