Brussels stalls probe into Elon Musk’s X amid US trade talks

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The European Commission has stalled one of its investigations into Elon Musk’s X for breaking the bloc’s digital transparency rules, while it seeks to conclude trade talks with the US.

Brussels was expected to finalise its probe into the social media platform before the EU’s summer recess but will miss this deadline, according to three officials familiar with the matter. They noted that a decision was likely to follow after clarity emerged in the EU-US trade negotiations. “It’s all tied up,” one of the officials added.

The EU has several investigations into X under the bloc’s Digital Services Act, a set of rules for large online players to police their platforms more aggressively.

The rules have become a flashpoint between Brussels and US Big Tech companies, backed by Donald Trump’s administration, which claim that the EU is unfairly targeting American firms and infringing freedom of speech principles championed by the Maga movement.

Last year, Brussels found X was in preliminary breach of its regulations for deceptive design and insufficient access to data and transparency. The bloc can impose fines up to 6 per cent of the platform’s yearly worldwide revenue, although penalties are expected to be set below that ceiling.

The commission, which runs EU trade policy, has been negotiating to secure a trade deal with the US since April, when the US president announced so-called reciprocal tariffs on the bloc, originally set at 20 per cent. They were then dropped to 10 per cent to allow time for negotiations, before Trump over the weekend declared he would levy tariffs of 30 per cent from August 1.

The ongoing talks make all US-related decisions particularly politically sensitive, Brussels officials said, as no one wants to offend Trump and escalate transatlantic trade conflicts.

While Trump and Musk have fallen out this year after developing a political alliance on the 2024 election, the US president has directly attacked EU penalties on US companies calling them a “form of taxation” and comparing fines on tech companies with “overseas extortion”.

Despite the US pressure, commission president Ursula von der Leyen has explicitly stated Brussels will not change its digital rule book. In April, the bloc imposed a total of €700mn fines on Apple and Facebook owner Meta for breaching antitrust rules.

But unlike the Apple and Meta investigations, which fall under the Digital Markets Act, there are no clear legal deadlines under the DSA. That gives the bloc more political leeway on when it announces its formal findings. The EU also has probes into Meta and TikTok under its content moderation rule book.

The commission said the “proceedings against X under the DSA are ongoing”, adding that the enforcement of “our legislation is independent of the current ongoing negotiations”.

It added that it “remains fully committed to the effective enforcement of digital legislation, including the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act”.

Anna Cavazzini, a European lawmaker for the Greens, said she expected the commission “to move on decisively with its investigation against X as soon as possible”.

“The commission must continue making changes to EU regulations an absolute red line in tariff negotiations with the US,” she added.

Alongside Brussels’ probe into X’s transparency breaches, it is also looking into content moderation at the company after Musk hosted Alice Weidel of the far-right Alternative for Germany for a conversation on the social media platform ahead of the country’s elections.

Some European lawmakers, as well as the Polish government, are also pressing the commission to open an investigation into Musk’s Grok chatbot after it spewed out antisemitic tropes last week.

X said it disagreed “with the commission’s assessment of the comprehensive work we have done to comply with the Digital Services Act and the commission’s interpretation of the Act’s scope”.

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