US Criticizes EU's Regulations as X Platform Faces €120m Fine

Sat Dec 06 2025 15:47:31 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

The European Union's fine against Elon Musk's social media platform X prompts strong reactions from US officials, who accuse the EU of unfairly targeting American companies.

The EU has imposed a €120 million fine on Elon Musk's social media platform X due to its controversial blue tick verification system, which the European Commission argues misleads users. The US government, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has condemned this action as a broader attack on American tech companies and their freedom. This incident underscores tensions between US and EU regulatory approaches to tech firms, especially in the wake of compliance with the EU's Digital Services Act.

The EU has fined Elon Musk's social media platform X €120m (£105m) over its blue tick badges - prompting an angry reaction from the US.

The European Commission said by allowing people to pay for a blue verified check mark on their profile, the platform 'deceives users' because the firm is not 'meaningfully verifying' who is behind the account.

'This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors,' it said.

But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have criticised the EU regulator, accusing it of attacking and censoring US firms.

'The European Commission's fine isn't just an attack on X, it's an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments,' Rubio wrote in a post on X.

His remarks were reposted by Musk, who added 'absolutely'. Earlier on Friday, FCC chair Brendan Carr had accused the Commission of targeting X merely because it was 'a successful US tech company'.

'Europe is taxing Americans to subsidise a continent held back by Europe's own suffocating regulations,' he wrote.

Their comments echo those made by US Vice-President JD Vance, who lashed out at the EU amid rumours of its forthcoming fine, claiming the platform was being punished 'for not engaging in censorship'.

Social media expert Matt Navarra said the comments showed the fine was not 'just a punishment [but] a statement' of the EU's willingness to enforce its regulation of tech firms.

In addition to taking issue with its use of blue ticks, EU regulators said X was also failing to provide transparency around its adverts, and it was not giving researchers access to public data.

'The fine issued today was calculated taking into account the nature of these infringements, their gravity in terms of affected EU users, and their duration,' the Commission said.

Henna Virkkunen, the regulator's executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, said it was 'holding X responsible for undermining users' rights and evading accountability'.

The decision means X must tell the Commission how it will bring the allegedly violating measures into compliance with EU laws, or face further, periodic fines.

The action constitutes the Commission's first decision on a platform's 'non-compliance' with its Digital Services Act (DSA).

Musk's shake-up to verification formed part of a sweeping set of changes he made after acquiring Twitter in late 2022, replacing the previous verification system with one tied to its Premium subscription tier. This required people to pay a monthly subscription fee for a blue tick displayed next to their account name.

The new verification method has been criticized for potentially allowing for increased impersonation and misleading content on the platform.