The EU, under its controversial Digital Services Act, is planning to fine Musk $1 billion for failure to respond to its demands for change in how the Musk-owned social media platform X, formerly Twitter, deals with information the EU says is misleading. The group also says X doesn’t do enough in the way of content moderation.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) has been around since 2022 but went into full effect in February 2024 with the stated goals of creating a safer and more transparent online environment in the EU. (See earlier article)
The EU consists of 449 million people in 27 countries.
“Totally coincidentally, X was the first platform the Digital Services Act went after,” said Christian Lasval, the social media manager for The Heritage Foundation – with a hint of sarcasm – on American Family Radio Monday.
“The fine is essentially because they are not doing enough to curb what the European Union determines is hate speech or disinformation,” Lasval told show host Jenna Ellis.
“It’s not really a coincidence. It’s absolutely a targeted measure by the European Union to try and silence the opinions of those whom the establishment liberals disagree with.”
It was just a couple of months ago the U.S. Vice President JD Vance called out European leaders at the Munich Security Conference for failing to do enough to protect free speech.
The fine, should it happen, would be the first assessed by the EU under the Digital Services Act. Other well-known social media platforms are said to be under the EU's microscope, but none with the wrath that appears to be reserved for X:
Meta: The European Commission has sent repeated requests for information regarding measures taken to comply with DSA, particularly for the protection of minors online.
TikTok: The European Commission has opened formal proceedings against TikTok to investigate potential breaches of DSA on multiple fronts.
BlueSky: The Democratic social media safe haven has been found in violation of DSA for not publishing its number of users in the EU.
Telegram: The social media and instant messaging platform has not been fined or faced investigation under DSA but has faced fines for failing to comply with court orders by various European governments.
A $1 billion fine for X would be quite a splash for a first effort at DSA enforcement and would require some creativity from the EU. DSA language, Lasval explained, specifies that a fine can be “up to six percent” of a social media platform’s annual turnover.
“For X's case if they generate between two and three billion dollars annually, those are the estimates of X's revenue, a six-percent fine on that would only be about $174 million,” Lasval said.
The DSA appears to be making a special case for Musk by assessing the value not only of X but of all his many private ventures.
Musk also owns SpaceX, the company which recently rescued the two stranded astronauts; and Tesla, the electric vehicle company which has come under attack and whose stock has dropped in retaliation for Musk’s efforts to expose and end fraud and financial waste within the federal government.
“There’s a provision that allows the DSA to do this, but it's supposed to be used for something like, let's say Meta, for example. If they were levying a fine against Facebook the platform, they're going to do it to Meta as the parent company,” Lasval says.
The free speech bombshell to come?
Musk vs. the EU is a dispute closely watched as Donald Trump’s tariffs roll out across the globe.
What would be the U.S. president’s reaction to a big fine against someone who’s been a key part of his administration? And could any impact to X before felt only by its EU users? Probably not, said Lasval.
“As my colleague Daniel Cochrane puts it," he offered, "it’s a race to the bottom for free speech in Europe, which obviously has impact for the platform in the United States.”
