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The European Fee has stalled considered one of its investigations into Elon Musk’s X for breaking the bloc’s digital transparency guidelines, whereas it seeks to conclude commerce talks with the US.
Brussels was anticipated to finalise its probe into the social media platform earlier than the EU’s summer season recess however will miss this deadline, in keeping with three officers aware of the matter. They famous {that a} choice was prone to observe after readability emerged within the EU-US commerce negotiations. “It’s all tied up,” one of many officers added.
The EU has a number of investigations into X underneath the bloc’s Digital Providers Act, a algorithm for big on-line gamers to police their platforms extra aggressively.
The foundations have grow to be a flashpoint between Brussels and US Large Tech corporations, backed by Donald Trump’s administration, which declare that the EU is unfairly concentrating on American corporations and infringing freedom of speech rules championed by the Maga motion.
Final yr, Brussels discovered X was in preliminary breach of its rules for misleading design and inadequate entry to information and transparency. The bloc can impose fines as much as 6 per cent of the platform’s yearly worldwide income, though penalties are anticipated to be set under that ceiling.
The fee, which runs EU commerce coverage, has been negotiating to safe a commerce cope with the US since April, when the US president introduced so-called reciprocal tariffs on the bloc, initially set at 20 per cent. They had been then dropped to 10 per cent to permit time for negotiations, earlier than Trump over the weekend declared he would levy tariffs of 30 per cent from August 1.
The continued talks make all US-related selections notably politically delicate, Brussels officers stated, as nobody desires to offend Trump and escalate transatlantic commerce conflicts.
Whereas Trump and Musk have fallen out this yr after growing a political alliance on the 2024 election, the US president has straight attacked EU penalties on US corporations calling them a “type of taxation” and evaluating fines on tech corporations with “abroad extortion”.
Regardless of the US strain, fee president Ursula von der Leyen has explicitly acknowledged Brussels won’t change its digital rule ebook. In April, the bloc imposed a complete of €700mn fines on Apple and Fb proprietor Meta for breaching antitrust guidelines.
However not like the Apple and Meta investigations, which fall underneath the Digital Markets Act, there aren’t any clear authorized deadlines underneath the DSA. That offers the bloc extra political leeway on when it pronounces its formal findings. The EU additionally has probes into Meta and TikTok underneath its content material moderation rule ebook.
The fee stated the “proceedings towards X underneath the DSA are ongoing”, including that the enforcement of “our laws is impartial of the present ongoing negotiations”.
It added that it “stays totally dedicated to the efficient enforcement of digital laws, together with the Digital Providers Act and the Digital Markets Act”.
Anna Cavazzini, a European lawmaker for the Greens, stated she anticipated the fee “to maneuver on decisively with its investigation towards X as quickly as attainable”.
“The fee should proceed making adjustments to EU rules an absolute pink line in tariff negotiations with the US,” she added.
Alongside Brussels’ probe into X’s transparency breaches, additionally it is trying into content material moderation on the firm after Musk hosted Alice Weidel of the far-right Different for Germany for a dialog on the social media platform forward of the nation’s elections.
Some European lawmakers, in addition to the Polish authorities, are additionally urgent the fee to open an investigation into Musk’s Grok chatbot after it spewed out antisemitic tropes final week.
X stated it disagreed “with the fee’s evaluation of the great work we now have completed to adjust to the Digital Providers Act and the fee’s interpretation of the Act’s scope”.
