The feud between Elon Musk and the European Union has intensified once again after the EU Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen announced a $140 million fine on X for breaking digital rules.
Reacting to the announcement on Sunday, Musk called for the dissolution of the European Union after the bloc fined his social media platform X. The EU accuses Musk’s company of flouting rules for paid blue and white checkmarks, blocking advertising access and also restricting access to its public databases for research purposes.
In a series of posts on Saturday and Sunday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote, “The European Union has become a giant cathedral to bureaucracy. It should be abolished, and sovereignty returned to nation-states so that governments can actually represent their people.”
The relations between Musk and Brussels soured after Musk expressed support for the right-wing political parties, which are surging across Europe. The step is seen as a move to silence X through the severe imposition of regulations on the platform.
Expressing his frustration over the move, Musk called the EU a “bureaucratic monster” and wrote that “the bloc should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries so that governments can better represent their people.”
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the fine on X as an “attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.” Vice President JD Vance said the EU targeted X for “not engaging in censorship”. European Commission Executive Vice President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen defended the fine, saying that “deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski reacted to Musk’s tirade by posting, “Go to Mars. There’s no censorship of Nazi salutes,” accusing Musk of being a Nazi supporter.
