The European Commission has fined Elon Musk’s platform X (formerly Twitter) €128 million — roughly $140 million — for multiple breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA) governing very large online platforms. The enforcement action targets X’s holding company for three main failings: misleading use of the blue verification badge after it became a paid feature, a malfunctioning advertising repository, and inadequate access for independent researchers to platform data.
In announcing the sanction, Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the EU prefers negotiated remedies and pointed to TikTok as an example of a company that offered concessions to avoid penalties. “If you engage constructively with the Commission, we settle cases,” he said. “If you do not, we take action.”
The decision follows July 2024 preliminary findings that X — which serves more than 100 million users in the EU — fell short of DSA transparency requirements, converted the blue check in ways that misled users, and obstructed researchers seeking data. Musk has publicly said he will contest any EU sanctions in court rather than negotiate concessions.
Under the DSA, regulators can fine companies up to 6% of global annual turnover, a ceiling that could have led to much larger penalties and might have affected other Musk-owned businesses if invoked. The fine against X comes amid sharp political debate: some U.S. figures, including Senator J.D. Vance, criticized the move as censorship, and the Trump administration has accused the EU of unfairly targeting U.S. tech firms and warned of possible trade responses. EU officials reject any link between trade talks and enforcement, saying the digital rules are not about censorship or singling out companies by nationality.
The penalty adds to a series of recent EU actions against major U.S. tech companies — including fines of €538 million for Apple and €216 million for Meta, plus multiyear penalties and remedies for Google worth several billion euros — and continued scrutiny of tax issues involving Apple.
Separate EU inquiries into X’s handling of illegal content, election-related misinformation, and the platform’s Community Notes feature remain open and have not yet reached the preliminary-stage sanctions cited in this decision.