The penalty follows a two-year investigation into X’s compliance with transparency rules applicable to platforms with more than 45 million monthly EU users.

The clash deepens tensions that have persisted since Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, when EU regulators began scrutinizing the company’s content moderation and data access practices.

The DSA Enforcement Trigger

The €120 million penalty stems from violations of the EU’s 2023 Digital Services Act (DSA), which allows fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover for major online platforms.

Regulators found that X breached transparency obligations in three core areas after Musk replaced the legacy verification system with a paid subscription model charging €8 per month.

The Commission ruled the new system deceptive, assigning €45 million of the total fine to that violation alone.

A second €35 million tranche targeted failures in X’s advertising repository, which regulators said was not sufficiently functional to allow monitoring of scams, political ads, or disinformation campaigns.

The remaining €40 million penalty was linked to restrictions on researchers’ access to public platform data, which the DSA treats as essential for independent oversight of algorithmic and content-related risks.

“The EU Should Be Abolished”

Musk responded publicly within hours, dismissing the fine with a single-word post: “Bullshit.”

He followed with broader political attacks, writing: “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries,” and later adding:

“The European Union is not DEMOcracy … but BUREAUcracy.”

He framed the enforcement action as a personal attack, stating that the fine was imposed “not just on @X, but also on me personally.”

Musk also reposted supportive messages from U.S. political figures, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Senator Marco Rubio, who criticized the EU for targeting American companies and suppressing free speech.

Musk replied to Rubio’s comments with “Absolutely.”

“The Fourth Reich”

Musk escalated the confrontation by endorsing a user post depicting the EU flag morphing into a swastika and labeled “The Fourth Reich.”

Musk responded: “Pretty much.”

The post received more than 100,000 likes and millions of views within hours, triggering widespread condemnation for invoking Nazi-era imagery.

European political figures rebuked the remark, including Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, who responded publicly: “Elon, go to Mars.”

Regulatory Deadlines and Escalation Risk

Alongside the financial penalty, the Commission issued formal non-compliance orders.

X has been given 60 working days to outline corrective measures for its verification system and 90 working days to submit an action plan covering advertising transparency and researcher access. Failure to comply could trigger periodic penalty payments and further enforcement actions.

The Commission also signaled that the decision addresses only part of its broader DSA investigation, which continues to examine X’s handling of illegal content, disinformation, elections, and child safety.

Officials characterized the initial fine as proportionate relative to the DSA’s maximum threshold but emphasized that escalation remains legally available.

Symbolic Retaliation and Political Fallout

Shortly after the ruling, X restricted the European Commission’s advertising access on the platform, a largely symbolic move with limited financial impact.

European officials defended the enforcement action as necessary to protect the bloc’s 450 million citizens and avoid regulatory backsliding under political pressure from Washington.

The confrontation highlights growing divergence between U.S. free-speech doctrine and European digital governance, with Musk positioning himself as an opponent of EU regulatory authority while Brussels frames the case as a test of the DSA’s credibility against a high-profile platform owner.