Elon Musk criticized the EU for its decision to fine social network X $140 million, saying the “bureaucratic monster” should be “disbanded”.

Billionaire Elon Musk on December 6 continuously criticized the European Union (EU) on his social network account X with 230 million followers, after the EU fined X 140 million USD for violating the bloc’s cyberspace regulations.

“The EU should be disbanded and sovereignty returned to individual nations so that their governments can better represent the people,” Musk wrote. “I’m serious, no joke.”

“I love Europe, but not the EU bureaucratic monster,” he continued in another post.

Elon Musk at a conference in Paris, France, June 2023. Photo: Reuters

This is the first time the European Commission has fined a social media company under the Digital Services Act (DSA) for content. The Commission said X had breached the DSA’s transparency obligations.

The violations included misleading design of the platform’s “blue checkmark” for supposedly verified accounts, failure to provide public data access to researchers, and failure to be fully transparent about advertising regulations.

The Trump administration criticized the decision to impose the fine. US Vice President JD Vance retweeted a July 2024 post by Mr. Musk about the European Commission offering to sign a secret agreement with X to quietly censor speech or face fines.

“Other platforms accepted that deal. X did not,” Mr. Musk wrote.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio commented: “The European Commission’s $140 million fine is not just an attack on X. It is an attack on all American technology platforms and the American people by foreign governments. The era of American online censorship is over.”