Overview
- Brussels issued a €120 million penalty to X for deceptive paid verification, insufficient advertising transparency, and denying qualified researchers access to public data under the DSA.
- Within a day, X terminated the European Commission’s advertising account, claiming it misused an Ad Composer format to make a link resemble a video, a contention disputed by reporters and by an EU statement noting it used standard tools and had stopped paid ads since October 2023.
- Elon Musk escalated his response by calling for the European Union to be abolished and describing the bloc as a bureaucratic monster.
- The decision requires X to present a plan within 60 days addressing verification design and within 90 days for ad repository transparency and researcher data access, with further penalties possible for non-compliance.
- Senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance condemned the EU action, while coverage indicates X plans to challenge the ruling in court.