WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0The European Commission\u2019s decision to impose a fine on Elon Musk\u2019s social media company, X, is drawing sharp pushback from top U.S. officials in President Donald Trump\u2019s administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trump himself became the latest to condemn the move this week when he called the 120-million-euro penalty \u2014 the equivalent of about $140 million \u2014 a \u201cnasty one\u201d while declaring that he didn\u2019t \u201cthink it\u2019s right.\u201d The president went on to suggest that he would get a \u201cfull report\u201d on the decision later and seemed to tie his criticism to his recent broader skepticism expressed toward Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEurope is going in some bad directions, very bad for the people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He also noted that Musk \u2014 who was a close aide to Trump before the pair had a public falling out that they have since appeared to smooth over \u2014 did not call him to ask for assistance on the matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the billionaire owner of X, Tesla and SpaceX has been anything but quiet about the subject on his social media site since the European Commission announced the fine Friday for what it said was X<\/a> \u201cbreaching its transparency obligations\u201d under its Digital Services Act, the online platform regulation it established in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n The executive body of the European Union pointed to three specific things<\/a> in announcing its move: X\u2019s \u201cdeceptive design of its \u2018blue checkmark,\u2019\u201d a \u201clack of transparency of its advertising repository\u201d and \u201cfailure to provide access to public data for researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n Vice President JD Vance \u2014 whose remarks at the Munich Security Conference<\/a> early in his tenure in the White House, in which he levied that free speech was in \u201cretreat\u201d in Europe, turned heads \u2014 appeared to take the lead among high-profile Trump administration officials in criticizing the European Commission before the fine was official.<\/p>\n \u201cRumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship,\u201d Vance wrote on X.<\/a> \u201cThe EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Following the announcement, other top officials joined in.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe European Commission\u2019s $140 million fine isn\u2019t just an attack on @X<\/a>, it\u2019s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments,\u201d Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n The U.S. ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, responded to Rubio\u2019s post,<\/a> calling the fine \u201cexcessive\u201d and the result of \u201cEU regulatory overreach targeting American innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump Administration has been clear: we oppose censorship and will challenge burdensome regulations that target US companies abroad,\u201d Puzder added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk has spent days slamming the decision and has called for the European Union to be \u201cabolished\u201d in response.<\/a> Members of the European Parliament have hit back in response, with one,<\/a> Helmut Brandst\u00e4tter from Austria, writing \u201cthe Tech Bros want small and week European countries. Won\u2019t happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He went on to declare that \u201cU.S. oligarchs will have to follow our laws.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It all comes as Trump over the last few days has appeared to sharpen his critiques of Europe, criticizing it over its handling of migration and free speech in his national security strategy released late last week and calling its leaders \u201cweak\u201d in an interview with Politico <\/a>published Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0The European Commission\u2019s decision to impose a fine on Elon Musk\u2019s social media company, X, is drawing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[117405,145887,117407,156148,117406,14857,2000,299,5187,1699,522,145888,117408,14,145886],"class_list":{"0":"post-623327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-all-markets-rank-everywhere","9":"tag-app-dc-bureau","10":"tag-app-for-your-consideration","11":"tag-app-international","12":"tag-app-national-politics","13":"tag-app-top-stories","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-europe","16":"tag-european","17":"tag-european-union","18":"tag-international","19":"tag-maddie-gannon","20":"tag-nnt","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-washington-dc-bureau"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115693018597586931","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n