Elon Musk has called for the EU to be abolished after it slapped his X social media platform with a fine worth more than £100million.
Brussels issued X, formerly Twitter, the €120million (£105million) penalty for breaching its highly controversial digital services law.
The law is meant to crack down on “illegal” or “harmful” content, such as hate speech and disinformation, but critics like Mr Musk have repeatedly warnjed it poses a major risk to free speech because the EU’s definitions are seen as vague and subjective.
It burdens a long list of demands on 19 platforms with more than 45 million active monthly users in the EU, including X and Facebook.
The European Commission said X exposed people to scams through its “blue tick” service.
It also accused the website of not disclosing information about its adverts, including who had paid for them, and raged at how X refused to hand over its data to EU “researchers”.
Now, the world’s richest man has unleashed a broadside of attacks against Brussels’s “bureaucratic monster”.
“Dissolve the EU and return power to the people,” he said, before raging at “EU woke Stasi commissars” and threatening retaliation against the individual officials who made the ruling.
Elon Musk has called for the EU to be abolished
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REUTERS
Mr Musk added: “The European Union is not DEMOcracy – rule of the people – but rather BUREAUcracy – rule of the unelected bureaucrat!”
The EU is a “tyrannical, unelected bureaucracy oppressing the people of Europe”, he added – and shared images labelling Brussels the “Fourth Reich”.
He then warned Brussels it would soon “understand the full meaning of the Streisand effect” – a phenomenon named for Barbra Streisand, in which efforts to censor information only bring it more attention.
On Sunday, X shut down the European Commission’s advertising account, saying it had abused the software to artificially inflate its reach.
PICTURED: European Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen. On Sunday, X shut down the EC’s advertising account
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GETTY
Mr Musk fell out with the Trump administration earlier this year but has since re-cosied up with the White House.
And after the EU fine was dished out, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was an “attack on all American tech platforms and the American people”.
Just hours earlier, Vice President JD Vance said: “The EU should be supporting free speech, not attacking American companies over garbage.”
The EU’s stringent new rules have also drawn comparisons to Britain’s contentious Online Safety Act.
