Musk’s X Hit With €120M EU Fine For Content Breaches, Hours After JD Vance Cautioned Against It

• This is the first-ever fine to be levied under the EU’s Digital Services Act.
• The European Commission noted in its announcement that it had adopted the preliminary findings of its 2024 investigation.
• X has been given time to inform the EC about measures it intends to undertake to address the Commission’s findings, and a failure to comply may lead to period penalty payments.

Elon Musk-led X has been fined €120 million ($140 million) by the European Union on Friday following a two-year investigation into the company over alleged violations of the EU’s online content rules.

This is the first-ever fine to be levied under the EU’s Digital Services Act. The European Commission concluded that X misled users with its paid-for blue ticks, failed to set up an advertising repository properly, and delayed granting researchers access to platform data.

Hours before the EU announced its fine against X, Vice President JD Vance preemptively criticized it. “Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage,” Vice President Vance said in a post on X.

XCORP is not listed publicly at the moment. Retail sentiment on Stocktwits around the company trended in the ‘neutral’ territory at the time of writing.

EU’s Investigation

The European Commission noted in its announcement that it had adopted the preliminary findings of its 2024 investigation. The Commission found that X had employed deceptive practices to allow users to obtain a “verified” status. It said that this affected the users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with.

“While the DSA does not mandate user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place,” the Commission said.

The EC also slammed X for a lack of transparency with respect to its advertisement repository, stating that there is a deficiency of critical information, such as the content and topic of the advertisement, as well as the legal entity paying for it.

What’s Next For X?

X now has 60 days to respond to the EC on how it plans to end the infringement of the DSA’s rules related to the deceptive use of blue checkmarks on the platform.

The social media platform has also been given 90 days to submit an action plan listing the measures X intends to take to address the infringement of DSA rules related to the advertising repository and access to public data for researchers.

“Failure to comply with the non-compliance decision may lead to periodic penalty payments. The Commission continues to engage with X to ensure compliance with the decision and with the DSA more generally,” the EC stated.

€1 = $1.16

Also See: Cloudflare Outage Hits Websites Globally – Here's The Latest Update On The Issue

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