Elon Musk calls for abolition of EU in furious rant after X slapped with €120m fine over new digital rules

Elon Musk is apparently furious with the European Union for its new digital laws that have seen his social media platform slapped with a huge fine.

The tech mogul has landed in hot water with the bloc, as his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has been handed a €120m (roughly $140m) fine for breaching new legislation.

The breaches are in reference to the EU’s Digital Services Act, including what it describes as the platform’s ‘deceptive’ blue tick verification badge, as well as a lack of transparency over the platform’s advertising and a ‘failure’ to provide access to public data for researchers.

The 54-year-old billionaire is less than impressed by the move, slamming the EU with calls to ‘abolish’ the union in a series of posts on X.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said Europe is ‘sleep-walking into oblivion’ and shared an image comparing the bloc’s flag to Nazi Germany across several furious rants.

He also called for ‘the people of Europe’ to be able to ‘withdraw from the EU to regain their sovereignty’.

“I mean it. Not kidding,” Musk added.

Musk isn’t happy about the order

“I love Europe, but not the bureaucratic monster that is the EU.”

The situation is likely to also cause a stir with the Trump administration too, as Vice President JD Vance wasted no time in airing his thoughts on the matter.

“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,” Vance penned on X, to which Musk replied: “Much appreciated.”

The European Commission said that by allowing people to buy check marks, the platform ‘deceives users’ as the firm is not ‘meaningfully verifying’ who is behind the account, “making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with.”

The order continued: “This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors. 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.”

Musk has called for the EU to be ‘abolished’

In addition, it claims the platform’s advertisement repository ‘fails to meet the transparency and accessibility requirements’ of the Act, adding that “accessible and searchable ad repositories are critical for researchers and civil society to detect scams, hybrid threat campaigns, coordinated information operations and fake advertisements.”

The Commission stated the fine was issued after ‘taking into account’ the many infringements and ‘their gravity in terms of affected EU users.’

It has now granted X 60 working days to inform the Commission how it intends to amend the infringements in relation to the blue ticks and 90 working days to submit an ‘action plan’ setting out measures to address its advertising model and access to public data.

Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, added in a statement: “Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU. The DSA protects users.

“The DSA gives researchers a way to uncover potential threats. The DSA restores trust in the online environment. With the DSA’s first non-compliance decision, we are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”